The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) has confirmed it will be meeting with the Treasury Tax Minister to call for the government's IHT changes to be 'finessed'.
The body will attend the meeting with the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and Tax Minister, James Murray MP, to discuss the proposed changes.
The meeting will take place on Tuesday 18 February and will be the second time the TFA has had a meeting with the minister since the autumn budget.
It follows a debate held in parliament on Monday 10 February, when over 40 MPs, including some backbench Labour MPs, raised concerns about the government’s proposals and argued for change.
TFA’s chief executive, George Dunn, who will represent the body at the forthcoming meeting, said he welcomed the invitation from the Treasury.
He said: "I will be seeking to assure him that we are not calling for the government to u-turn its policy, but we do believe that the policy needs to be finessed.
"The TFA has called for the forthcoming technical consultation on Trusts to be expanded in scope, to consider some of the wider technical issues that have been subject to discussion since the budget."
Mr Dunn said it was also important that the government protects tenant farmers by allowing landlords to have access to 100% relief from IHT where they are letting land under secure agreements or Farm Business Tenancy agreements, let for 10 years or more.
"This will remove the threat of tenancies being ended and land being sold in order to fund potential taxes on death by these estates,” he added.
What questions will be asked at the meeting?
The issues that TFA believes the government needs to address are:
• What is the correct level of the APR/BPR threshold?
• Would there be merit in allowing the APR/BPR threshold to be transferable between spouses and civil partners?
• How do you deal with the disappearance of the residence nil rate band progressively on estates valued at more than £2 million?
• How do you protect tenanted land on estates that will be valued at levels much higher than any threshold?
• What measures could mitigate the changes' impact on those who are already over retirement age and have held onto assets on the basis of previous tax advice?
