Farmers retiring usually do so after owning their farms for a very long time. During that time many farmers have made a loss over recent years, and whenever there were profits in the past they were re-invested in the farm. Proceeds from retiring and selling up provide the farmer with his one chance to provide for himself and his family for the future. Unless indexation is also brought back, CGT is going to be paid upon inflation, and a £100,000 exemption relief on it's own would be a joke.

richard cooper, totnes, uk

I like about 1.5m other emploies entered the company share save scheme , this is paid out of my wages after it has been taxed.

I commit to either 3 or 5 years only to see this awful government change the rules and find myself with a 80% increase in taxation.

Thanks for once again making financial planning impossible in this country. ( they stole my pension as well ,while enhancing there own !!)

Raymond mccarthy, tadworth, england

Darling's proposed changes to CGT raised eybrows from me, just as increasing the IHT threshold did. There was nothing that could not have waited until the Budget proper, by which time the hype that followed Osborne's IHT proposals may well have passed.

Still, given the vilification Brown received over changes to IHT which, as The Times notes, are the very same changes that has been considered, though not implemented, long before Osborne made his proposals, then some vindication is due.

Since the proposed changes to CGT was to address the Private Equity issue, the government should have proposed new tax legislation should pertaining to Private Equity and it alone, while leaving CGT as it stands.

Still the government has taken on board the concerns of business groups and acted. That's to be welcomed not pilloried. Never knew a government that was ever infallible which is why U-turns are not necessarily a sign of weakness or poor governance.

Dave, Durham,

Brown and his ministers had to make up policy on the hoof to be ready for a general election that Brown took fright about and cancelled. This included bringing forward the budget statement by a month. Brown has, in a few short months, demonstrated why he was never PM material, something Blair realised back in 1996.

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

if you move to spain and are uk domiciled you will still have to pay uk iht!

Rob, london,

This penalises the small business owners who typically have invested huge amounts of their life into running their own business. Taper relief meant that those who did saw some rewards for their efforts over time. These prudent, hard-working people have just been massively penalized in an attempt to crack down on a few mega-wealthy people who will probably just take their money elsewhere. Talk about own goals...

Rick, UK,

So I sell my business for £5m, get £100k in relief and pay 18% on the remaining £4.9m. They've got to be joking.

Scamp, Aberdeenshire,

This govt seems to be doing policy by bumbling around in a darkened closet trying to pin a tail on a donkey. Total idiots.

Laurance Allen, Bodrum, Turkey

It is iniquitous that business owners should get any tax concessions. Why should ordinary employed individuals pay 40% CGT and 40% IHT to give these people large tax free gains?
No wonder so many people are emigrating to E.g. Spain where IHT and CGT for most people has almost been abolished. I am joining them.

Heava Sye, Guildford,

Yet another manifestation of the appalling incompetence of Ministers and the Government as a whole. We are see - daily - U-turns, policy withdrawals, corrections to Government statements, legislative tinkering, and introductions of whole tranches of ill-considered regulation.

What is going on? Do these people have any ability at all? It seems that virtually all policy is being driven by news headline.

This is not a Government in charge. It is a Government on the run, cowed and broken. Such a pity that we have all had to suffer on Minsters' Learning Curves.

Chuck Unsworth, London,

Brown and Darling are in a complete panic. They have no idea what they are doing. Brown understands tax only in the same way that a cow understands grass - he's good at hoovering it up, but he has no technical grasp.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

A rather inaccurate article above. Gordon's government has made a necessary adjustment to a new tax rate. The new tax rate was a sensible simplification, and the adjustment was sensible. So why the critical view? Credit where credit is due! After all, the increase of 10% to 18% on unearnt income is hardy drastic. This is a capital gains tax.

Wini, South Coast, UK

It is rightly said that ' Might is right ' . Brown and Darling are listening to buisness people because of their powerful lobby. Why no body is coming to the help of poor Non Doms. I mean those Non Doms who have a few bucks saved abrosd. After all they also have lot of contribution in Britian's economic welfare.

Sadhu, Norhampton, UK

This very idea was floated by Philip Green on Radio 5 last week! It clearly makes a lot of sense and will undoubtedly silence the critics for a while. Like all knee jerk reaction based decisions, it may have unexpected consequences. For example, longer term buy to let investors will have a £ 100 K incentive to sell up post April 2008, with no longer any need to wait for taper relief to work through their investment. That should work wonders for the property market - what is left of it by then. What is the definition of "retiring" anyway? I wonder which labour policy will be amended on the radio this week?

A Patrick, Bath,

This is exactly what happens when you rush out a half-baked policy without thinking of the unintended consequences. This inept government is driven by the need to cling on to power by securing the headlines they think will appeal, rather than genuine principle-led policies.

This most recent fix won't work anyway. Define "Retire", for one thing. If I sell and take some time away, do I have to repay this relief if I join another board or decide to start another business? And if I want to sell and start again, it makes no difference anyway. That's what I do: I'm a starter, not a long-run type.

The fix that would work, if Captain Darling is really going after the large Fund players, would be to cap the taper relief at say £100 million's worth of asset. That would do me!

But they don't think these things through because they've never had a proper job. They simply should not be in charge - they don't have the necessary experiece of the real world.

David Hoggard, York,

This still does not help the millions of workers who receive lower pay and whom, to make up for this have put all their eggs into the company they work for by taking Stock Options.

Its criminal how much money Labour are taking from hard working employees who suffer the risk of their shares collapsing in the volatile markets and have to work incredibly hard to get these reward.

Aubrey, London,

Whatever happened to competence and good old-fashioned bottle?

Andrew Waldron, Bournemouth, England