Formula One world champion loses £1.4million tax bill fight over his Hampshire buffalo farm
Jody Scheckter, the 1979 Formula One world champion, has lost a tribunal battle with HM Revenue and Customs over a £1.4 million tax bill linked to his organic buffalo farming venture in Hampshire. The 76-year-old South African-born driver poured £55 million into Laverstoke Park in Overton after buying the estate in 1996, building it into Britain's largest herd of water buffalo before the business folded in 2024 due to rising costs and falling milk volumes. The case matters because it highlights the limits of "sideways loss relief", a tax mechanism that allows farmers to offset losses against other income, but only if the enterprise becomes profitable within five years.
HMRC ruled in 2019 that Scheckter's farming partnership, Laverstoke Farm Produce LLP, had wrongly used this relief to offset losses from 2008 to 2010 against profits from his other business interests, since the farm had never turned a profit and so did not qualify. The First Tier Tribunal's tax chamber dismissed his appeal, leaving him liable for £1,457,634. Judge Tony Beare expressed sympathy, calling the outcome a source of "considerable sadness" given the imagination and passion Scheckter had invested in trying to build a model for organic farming worldwide, but said the tribunal was compelled to reach its conclusion. Scheckter, the only African driver to win an F1 Grand Prix or world title, had earlier made a fortune from a firearms training simulation company before channelling much of it into the farm.
- Jody Scheckter loses tribunal appeal over £1.4m tax bill
- HMRC rejected loss relief claims on his failed buffalo farm
- Judge expressed regret despite dismissing his appeal
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Jody Scheckter is best known for winning the 1979 Formula One world championship, the last British-based driver to take the title until Lewis Hamilton decades later. After his racing career he built up a company making firearms training simulators, which he later sold, and used the proceeds to buy Laverstoke Park estate in Hampshire in 1996. There he set about creating a large-scale organic farm, eventually establishing what became Britain's biggest herd of water buffalo, kept mainly for milk and cheese production.
The farm was a costly, long-term project, with Scheckter investing tens of millions of pounds over the years, but it never turned a profit and closed in 2024 amid rising costs and falling milk output. At issue in this case is a UK tax rule known as "sideways loss relief", which lets people running a trade or business set losses from that venture against tax owed on income from elsewhere, provided the business shows it can become profitable within a set number of years.
HM Revenue and Customs argued that Scheckter's farming business did not meet that condition and should not have used the relief to reduce his tax bill on income from his other ventures. The dispute went before an independent tax tribunal, the body that rules on disagreements between taxpayers and HMRC, which assesses such cases on the facts and evidence presented rather than on the wider merits of the business itself.