Farmers lose High Court challenge over inheritance tax changes
Farmers have lost a High Court challenge against the Government over inheritance tax changes.
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Thomas Martin, his father George Martin and the campaign group Farmers and Businesses for Fair Tax Reliefs brought the claim against the Treasury and HMRC arguing that the Government acted unlawfully by limiting the scope of consultation.
They did not challenge the tax reforms themselves.
The Treasury and HMRC defended the claim, with lawyers saying that it lacked merit.
And on Tuesday, judges at the High Court rejected the legal challenge.
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In a written judgment, Lady Justice Whipple said: “The claim lacks substantive merit because there never was any legitimate expectation to a consultation of the sort claimed by the claimants.”
Lady Justice Whipple, sitting with Mr Justice Fordham, found there was “no clear and unambiguous promise of a full consultation on the reforms proposed”.
They also said the claim had been brought too late and was not capable of being decided by a court of law because of parliamentary privilege.
Updates to agricultural property relief and business property relief from inheritance tax were announced in the autumn 2024 budget and came into force on April 6 this year.
Government policy was that it would carry out a formal, written, public consultation with affected taxpayers before making significant tax regime changes, Aparna Nathan KC, for the farmers, told the hearing in March.
The court heard the Government published a consultation document on February 27 2025 that Ms Nathan said covered “only a very limited aspect” of the tax changes.
The farmers alleged the Government acted unfairly and breached principles of good administration by not applying its own policy on consultations to the reforms.
At the hearing, Mark Fell KC, for the Treasury and HMRC, said in written submissions that the policy commitment to at least one formal, written, public consultation is not absolute and only applies “where possible”.