Readers’ forum: Farming partnership

I act for a farming partnership that has rental income from four cottages as well as arable sales.

The business is partially exempt and uses the standard method but normally the exempt input tax is within the de minimis limits so we claim everything.

However for the year ending 31 March 2021 there was no farming income because of a bad year for wheat and barley.

The partnership has sown winter seed and the year ending 31 March 2022 should have sales of both crops.

This means that the farm will not be able to claim any input tax on general overheads mixed costs or costs relevant to the cottages in the 2021 tax year because the standard method will give zero input tax recovery on these costs and the de minimis threshold will be exceeded.

This seems unfair – do readers have any suggestions...