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Tax breaks for farmers causing 'subsidy addiction', government adviser warns

Some years hence at a party of some kind in the West Country, I found myself chatting to a farmer. He was telling me about sheep farming, and making the point that it would be wholly uneconomic without massive taxpayer subsidies. Naturally I asked why these subsidies were provided. After all, if management consulting were to become uneconomic, because of the 

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"Farmers receive not just the £3 billion of subsidy, they receive a whole range of other benefits that nobody else in the economy gets."

From Tax breaks for farmers causing 'subsidy addiction', government adviser warns

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“If you’re producing 0.7% of output, receiving £3 billion of subsidies for that output of about £9 billion and being exempted on rates, and being exempted on diesel and being exempted on inheritance tax… it’s kind of a subsidy addiction in the end.

From Tax breaks for farmers causing 'subsidy addiction', government adviser warns

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