There are some pretty fanciful numbers bandied about this week over the potential value of Home Farm should the partners manage to agree the mad plan for a sale. As a simple accountant I can spot this is a gross simplification. First up as I assume Brian gifted the assets to the partnership, if he does not live for seven years after gift then there will be inheritance tax payable as the exemptions for farm land passing down through the family will no longer apply. On the disposal itself capital gains tax at rates up to 40% become due on the gain, although there are some personal exemptions that apply and I don’t think we know the original cost or how that might have been apportioned to the sale of the farm house when it was sold to the Gills! All in all the amounts that will reach the partners will be a lot less than the gross numbers discussed!
Meanwhile Blake appeared through a time and space wormhole, without his fellow six rebels. As a result he has difficulty comprehending that Mr Moss was not as nice as he should have been in actually paying his employees or coping with the concept of a three course meal of the type regularly encountered at The Lodge.
Ms Artois is here and getting stuck into managing Home Farm. So rather than ask about the fishing lake, the deer, the beetle banks, the soft fruit, the aquaponics, the shoot, the yurts, or the burial ground in the Millennium Wood, her really topic of conversation is succession and what happens if Brian goes for a really long nap. Frankly m’dear you will wish you had not asked.
Kosmo
Join us this week for a DumTeeDum tune by the Paul Family in New York, the facebook roundup by Sandra and calls/emails from Jen, Clare, Mia (or was it Ian?), Christine, Brian, Glyn, Emily, Witherspoon, Stephen, Katherine, and Anon of Ambridge.
