'OUR BLOOD WAS BOILING'...FARMERS' ANGER AT TALKS

Fury as ministers are accused of being 'deaf' to family tax grab concerns

- Christian Calgie

FURIOUS farmers claim their blood was "boiling" at the collapse of crisis talks with the Treasury over huge inheritance tax bills.

Ministers were accused of being "deaf" to concerns that the tax raid may force some family businesses to shut down. They faced claims that the 20% levy was part of an "ideological" war against the farming community, after they rejected other options outright.

Victoria Vyvyan, president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), said: "I looked around the room and I thought, 'I'm not sure that there is anybody in this room who really understood...what a balance sheet looks like'. I didn't think there was anybody in the room who knew what profit and loss looks like.

"They were just adamant and deaf to what we were trying to say.