It might be thought that the treatment of hay for tax purposes is of minimal importance. However fields used for hay cover a substantial part of the UK landscape and HMRC could use to its advantage a change from production to environmental concerns. This might be the case, for instance, on the death of a farmer who has perhaps diversified from traditional farming in later years to haymaking with other letting activities.
Increasingly, HMRC is taking a negative approach to 'horse haymaking', arguing that such activity does not qualify for agricultural property relief. This has worrying consequences for the farming community on the claiming of future tax reliefs, such as agricultural property relief (APR).
The consensus has always been that 'a farmer who makes hay is a farmer' and, whether
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Web page updated on 17 Mar 2025 16:43