Zara Tindall faces being saddled with huge inheritance tax bill for Princess Anne's 730-acre Gatcombe Park - but King Charles and Prince William's farms are exempt By Mark Duell Published: 10:28, 7 November 2024 | Updated: 10:57, 7 November 2024 e-mail 35 View comments Princess Anne 's Gatcombe Park estate falls foul of Labour's new inheritance tax rules - while fellow farmers the King and Prince William are exempt, it has emerged. 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 farmers warned the Government plans would 'decimate the countryside' and cause family farms to 'disappear' as they staged a protest yesterday .
Some 50 farmers gathered outside the Northern Farming Conference in Hexham, Northumberland, with one saying his inheritance tax bill would be pushed 'to an almighty level' with 'massive.