"Unassuming wooden crates filled with brake pads and metal springs are piled high in the loading bay of the Broadbent factory close to Huddersfield city centre. Shipping them out to Nigeria and Ghana remains the day job for Simon Broadbent, but the manufacturer's owner has a growing issue nagging at him the fate of his 160-year-old business in the face of Labour's tax overhaul."
"Under the current system, business property relief allows families to pass on assets free of inheritance tax (IHT). Reeves's IHT changes which have also caused shock and anger among farmers would mean children who inherit companies' property assets, which in many cases is a factory, will need to find the money to pay IHT at 20% on assets above 1m."
"Simon, 72, is the great-great grandson of the company's founder, Thomas Broadbent, and as its current chair he controls one of the few metal forming operations in the UK, bending and welding rolled steel into sophisticated machines that are exported all over the world. He fervently makes the case for small, family-owned businesses. For every JCB and Dyson, there are hundreds of firms just making a decent living, just making a decent living,"
A Huddersfield metal-forming firm exports machinery parts to West Africa and is family-run for five generations. Proposed changes to inheritance tax would remove business property relief, requiring heirs to pay 20% IHT on company property assets above £1m. The change would force many inheritors to find large cash sums when inheriting factories and property. Trade groups and manufacturers warn the reform threatens small and medium family businesses and the manufacturing backbone. Farmers have also reacted with shock and anger. Owners fear the policy will endanger business continuity and put long-established companies at financial risk.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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