Rachel Reeves ‘will saddle Zara Tindall with an enormous inheritance tax invoice’: No escape for the royals from Labour’s raid on farms as critics declare it can flip the countryside into ‘Net Zero forests’

Princess Anne‘s Gatcombe Park estate is believed to fall foul of Labour’s new inheritance tax rules – while fellow farmers the King and Prince William are exempt.

The 730-acre site and Grade II-listed house near Stroud in in Gloucestershire has now served as the Princess Royal’s country home for nearly half a decade.

The 18th-century property and estate was purchased by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 1976 as a wedding present for Anne’s first marriage to Captain Mark Phillips.

The park’s former owner, ex-Conservative home secretary Lord Butler, reportedly sold it to the former monarch for a sum that would now be worth almost £6million.

Now, under plans announced in the Budget, inheritance tax will be charged at 20 per cent on agricultural assets above £1million, but Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said that in some cases the threshold could in practice be about £3million.

It comes as experts warned the plans could put farmland at risk of being turned into ‘Net Zero forests’ by foreign corporations, and farmers said it would ‘decimate the countryside’ and cause family farms to ‘disappear’ as they staged a protest.

Some 50 farmers gathered outside the Northern Farming Conference in Hexham, Northumberland, yesterday with one saying his inheritance tax bill would be pushed ‘to an almighty level’ with ‘massive repercussions for the next generation’.

While the 20 per cent figure still represents a relief of 50 per cent compared to the standard rate, farming unions have argued it will make British farms uncompetitive.

With the value of Gatcombe thought to be around double the £3million threshold, it means Anne’s two children, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall – who also have homes on the estate – will likely now face paying inheritance tax on it when the Princess dies.

However, Anne’s fellow royal farmers King Charles III and the Prince of Wales are exempt from inheritance tax – given that they benefit from a ruling introduced in 1993 by then-prime minister John Major when Elizabeth II first started paying tax.

The clause means any inheritance passed ‘sovereign to sovereign’ avoids the tax levy – which also saw the King avoid paying the tax when his mother died in 2022.

The ruling also has an exemption for inheritance tax from the consort of a former sovereign to a sovereign – which was last used after the Queen Mother’s death in 2002, when she left an estimated £70million fortune to her daughter Elizabeth II.

In 1992, Elizabeth II volunteered to pay income tax and capital gains tax on her personal income, and the King does the same.

The King now owns the Duchy of Lancaster, inherited from Elizabeth II, and William owns the Duchy of Cornwall, which was previously owned by his father.

The two duchies are exempt from corporation tax, but the King and William voluntarily pay income tax on the revenue they generate. However, the amount of tax they pay is not made public.

They do not pay capital gains tax because they do not benefit personally from any increase in the duchies’ assets – and William will also not pay inheritance tax when Charles dies.

The Duchy of Lancaster is a portfolio of land, property and assets across England and Wales held in trust for the Sovereign, including key urban developments, historic buildings, high-quality farm land and areas of great natural beauty, dating back to the 14th century.

The Duchy of Cornwall is a similar portfolio valued at more than £1billion which provides an income for the heir to the throne.

As for Gatcombe, when Anne and Captain Phillips divorced in 1992, the estate was split between them – and Anne still uses the home as a country residence with her second husband Sir Timothy Laurence.

Peter has a house on the site, as does Zara who lives in Aston Farm, a renovated seven-bedroom farmhouse with her husband Mike Tindall and their children Mia, Lena, and Lucas.

The main house where Anne lives was originally constructed in 1774 but was redesigned for economist David Ricardo around 1820.

The manor is thought to have five bedrooms, four secondary bedrooms, four reception rooms, a library, a billiard room and a conservatory. The estate also features a large stables and a trout lake.

Speaking to the BBC’s Countryfile programme in 2014, Anne said: ‘It’s really nice to come back and just be yourself in an area like this.

‘Being able to take on a place like this -for me, I’ve got to make it work. This is not something that comes free, this has got to pay its way, otherwise I can’t stay here.’

Today, the Daily Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle column reported that Anne was ‘apparently not amused’ that her estate comes under the new inheritance tax rules. 

In March 2021, Zara gave birth to her baby son on the ‘bathroom floor’ of her house on the estate.

Her husband, former England rugby player Mike Tindall, broke the news on his podcast The Good, The Bad and The Rugby, saying: ‘Sunday got even better because a little baby boy arrived at my house.

‘Arrived very quickly. Didn’t make it to hospital. On the bathroom floor.’

The park is not normally open to the general public, except for the first weekend of August when it hosts the annual Festival of British Eventing.

The event – which has been running for 40 years – usually attracts top equestrian Olympians and tens of thousands of spectators, but this year organisers had to call it off because increasing costs made it ‘unfeasible’ to run.

The event’s chairman, Anne’s ex-husband Captain Mark Phillips, said in March: ‘Since Covid, costs, particularly insurance, have risen so much that the numbers no longer add up. It is an end of an era, the next 40 years of the sport will be different, let’s hope it can be equally special.’

Gatcombe is also where Anne was rushed to hospital after being struck by a horse while out walking in late June.

Anne suffered concussion and mild head injuries and spent five nights in hospital, before she returned gradually to public duties three weeks later, when she was hailed as a ‘super trooper’ by William and Kate.

Earlier this week, an investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches and the Sunday Times examined the land and properties owned by Charles and William through the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall.

It revealed that the private estates have struck rental deals worth millions of pounds with the armed forces, the NHS and state schools.

The investigation reported that last year the Duchy of Lancaster agreed a deal to store a new fleet of electric ambulances, owned by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust in London, in one of the estate’s warehouses at a cost of £11.4 million over 15 years.

It also said the Duchy of Cornwall had charged the navy more than £1million since 2004 to build and use jetties and moor warships on the Cornish coastline.

The duchy will also earn around £600,000 over the lifetime of six different leases agreed with local state schools, the investigation found.

Meanwhile the Country and Land Business Association (CLA) has claimed the new farm inheritance tax rules will make many farmers sell up – and the biggest buyers are likely to be firms looking to offset their carbon footprint.

The group’s president Victoria Vyvyan told the Daily Telegraph: ‘If family farms are forced to sell, the land won’t just go to neighbours. Buyers may include corporations needing carbon offsets, local councils eyeing development, and lifestyle buyers.

‘Environmental charities may also step in, using the land for ecosystem services, biodiversity projects, and new habitats. Unlike farmers, they’ll face no inheritance tax.

‘We know from experience that all these options can lead to responsible land stewardship. But each risks breaking the vital link between the land and those who know it best – those who live and work on it every day.’

Will your farm be hit by new inheritance tax plans? Email: [email protected]