The heir to JCB\u2019s vast manufacturing empire has warned Rachel Reeves\u2019s Inheritance Tax policy could force the UK-based business to move to America. From April, only the first \u00a32.5m of a business\u2019s assets is eligible for tax relief after the owner\u2019s death; the rest is taxed at 20%.<\/p>\n
But JCB chairman Lord Bamford’s son, Jo, says Britain risks losing one of its major success stories to the US due to the US’s more favourable tax rates. He said the family tax is a “real problem” and the firm, quite is headquartered in Staffordshire, could “quite easily become an American business\u201d.<\/p>\n
He told City AM<\/a>: “I love being in Britain.<\/p>\n \u201cI love being here. I love our factories. But I would say to a political party of any stripe, there\u2019s only so much you can ultimately do.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Bamford, who is on the board of the company his grandfather founded in 1945, said JCB could consider leaving Britain due to the inheritance tax levies faced by family businesses under Labour.<\/p>\n The threshold had initially been set \u00a31million, but the Chancellor Rachel Reeves<\/a> was forced into an embarassing climbdown amid outrage from farmers.<\/p>\n A Treasury spokesperson said: \u201cWe\u2019ve listened and raised the relief threshold to \u00a32.5m to protect more small family businesses, while ensuring the largest make a fair contribution so we can deliver support for families and businesses, including cutting the cost of living<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Both farms and family-run firms had previously benefited from a longstanding carve-out from the unpopular levy in order to allow them to be passed down freely, but were brought into the tax\u2019s orbit amid fears it was being abused as a loophole by the super-rich.<\/p>\n