Institute meets with local government to discuss April 2026 restrictions to IHT reliefs

Last week, members of the Institute’s Tax and Public Policy team met with senior representatives from the Department of Finance and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland in our continued effort to highlight the disproportionate impact that the April 2026 restrictions to the Inheritance Tax (IHT) reliefs, agricultural property relief and business property relief, will have in Northern Ireland (NI). The meeting followed on from a recent letter from the Minister of Finance in response to the Institute having previously shared with local government its April 2025 letter to the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (XST) on this issue.

The Institute continues to call on the UK Government to introduce a special derogation for the region from these changes and will be making further representations on this key issue for the agricultural and family owned business sectors in NI ahead of the Autumn Budget on 26 November.

During the meeting it was clear that local government shares our concerns in relation to this. Government representatives also outlined the wide range of work being undertaken locally to discuss this, particularly by the Minister of Finance, with Westminster. This includes direct engagement with the Chancellor of the Exchequer at a meeting last month in Stormont Castle.

At present, HM Treasury continues to insist in discussions and in the policy paper published with the draft legislation on L-day in July that their data shows these changes will have minimal impact. They are also resisting all representations on how the draft legislation could be mitigated. The Institute set out a range of mitigations in its letter to the XST earlier this year to reduce the impact on genuine farming activity and the family owned business sector.

During the meeting, the Institute also took the opportunity to highlight its recently launched refreshed campaign for a lower rate of corporation tax in NI as outlined in the position paper “Enhancing Our Competitiveness”, which was launched in June.