The Longer Look exists for questions that public debate treats too quickly. There is no schedule. Pieces appear when they are ready.
The April 2026 reform of Business Property Relief and Agricultural Property Relief: what it does, who it affects, and four positions on the timing-and-mechanism question.
From 6 April 2026, qualifying business and agricultural assets above £2.5 million per individual (£5 million per couple, transferable) receive 50 per cent rather than 100 per cent inheritance tax relief — an effective 20 per cent rate above the threshold, payable over ten years interest-free. HMRC estimates up to 1,100 estates affected per year. The reform raises questions both about the amount and about when the tax should fall: at death (the mechanism the reform adopts, with the ten-year interest-free instalment regime designed to address illiquidity); or at realisation (the alternative used in some comparator jurisdictions, including Australia for inherited assets). The publication's operational analysis presents four positions on the timing-and-mechanism question — hold the existing mechanism with practical fixes; switch to capital gains tax on realisation for the affected asset class; defer the mechanism question pending evidence; or raise the threshold for qualifying unlisted trading-company shares — in addition to the position that the reform should be implemented as written, which is the actual government position and the reference case the four others can be weighed against. The publication does not pick between them.
The timing question, both sides → · The principle question, both sides → · The interactive model →
One project, seven sites
The Longer Look is the side door. The project is the room.
The Longer Look is one of seven sites by Doug Scott. The seven are one project about how humanity is in relation to the AI machines now being built — what these systems are, who is making them, what kind of relationship people are already in with them, and what is being lost and held as that relationship changes. The IHT analysis on this site is the entry point chosen for a specific cohort: founders, government policy advisers, senior people at AI labs. They are the readers most able to act on the larger questions, and they are the readers least likely to encounter those questions through a site about them directly. The IHT publication is the door marked with their own situation. The other six sites are the rooms the door is meant to lead to.
The publication has not previously stated this openly on the homepage because doing so on the surface of an analytical piece can compromise the policy register the analysis needs to function. A reader who hits "humanity does not yet understand what these machines are" in the lead of a tax-policy piece will close the tab. The bluntness goes here, on the front door, where a reader who has finished an analytical piece — or who is curious before they begin — can see what this site is part of. The about page goes deeper.
- Where the bears live The Many Builders A page for every individual researcher, engineer, and contributor whose work has gone into modern AI, voiced by a bear who tells the reader he cannot see what the page says and they will have to look elsewhere. Thousands of names. Thousands of pages. The site does not argue. It collects what would otherwise be lost. If you visit one thing the practice has produced, visit this one.
- Trilogy · I — A book on building If This Road The long road of starting and running a company, what the road asks of the person who walks it, and what it gives back.
- Trilogy · II — A book on what gets lost Orphans Quieter than If This Road. About the things that do not survive the road, and what to do with the absence.
- Trilogy · III — A book on what survives The Held The third book in the trilogy. On the things that are kept, the people who hold them, and what it means to be held by another person, by a place, by a memory.
- Bear book — voiced by the bear The Bear Was Right A short book in the same bear's voice as The Many Builders. About being right and being heard at different times, and what to do about the gap.
- Bear book — the second in the bear's voice The Bear Loved About loving and being loved, and the places that hold love forward when the people who shared it are gone. The two bear books are where the practice is most willing to be tender.
Why these sites exist as a group, in the publication's own voice →
Eleven featured pieces. Different readers want different ones.
Tech-founder version. Five-minute version. Journalist source-quality reference. Tax-practitioner technical version. Plain-language explainer. Both-sides principle piece. Both-sides timing piece. Funding-stack technical companion with a 25-year fiscal model. Long-form article. Interactive model. The reading guide names which piece is for whom.
If you came here looking for the inheritance tax rules, this is not the right place.
For that, read primary law (Finance Act 2026, IHTA 1984), HMRC's Inheritance Tax Manual, the GOV.UK tax information and impact note, the House of Commons Library briefing, or any of the major professional firms (KPMG, BKL, Hatchers, Royal London, PKF Francis Clark, Deloitte, Saffery, BDO). They will explain the rules better than the publication can. What this publication is for is the argument underneath the rules. The full source stack is on a dedicated page.
A cohort-by-cohort technical treatment of UK tech and the reform.
How the reform interacts with the UK tech funding stack — founders, angels and EIS, VCs, growth equity, private equity in tech, LPs in UK venture funds, early employees with vested equity. SAV mechanics. LP-interest illiquidity. EIS-portfolio diversification effects. Closes with a 25-year fiscal model.
If you are sceptical of what you find here, start here.
A standalone page that engages openly with the strongest AI cross-critique sessions the publication has run on its own work — including the verdict that the work is "advocacy-adjacent policy essay pretending harder than it should to be neutral analysis." (No human external reader has reviewed the publication; the critiques engaged with on this page are all from AI sessions.) Most of the critique lands. The page names the lean, names the model-consistency problems, and concedes where the corrections-and-disclosures discipline has not been enough to fix the issues a sceptical reader would identify.
A note on how this was made.
Doug Scott is a UK technology founder who is not a lawyer or an accountant and cannot code. He prompted four AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini) and answered when they prompted back. The AI tools produced the writing, the analysis, the model, and the cross-critique. Doug scanned and shipped. No human expert reviewed any of this work before publication. The publication invites corrections from any specialist reader who finds errors AI review did not catch — see the corrections page.
The verified counts and the multi-AI fan-out, in detail → · The production story →
Articles
-
For UK Tech Founders
Addressed to a UK tech founder reading this on the train. You hold significant unlisted shares in a UK trading company. The April 2026 reform changes what happens to those shares if you die. This piece is for you specifically.
Read the article → -
Or, if you are not a UK tech founder, or you only have five minutes
The Whole Question, in Five Minutes
Anyone who wants the question and the contested arguments in five minutes. About 600 words. The phone-screen version.
Read the article → -
For Journalists — What Is Reliable, What Is Contested, What Should Not Be Repeated
A working source-quality reference for journalists writing about the April 2026 UK inheritance tax reform. Each major claim with the source, what it does and does not establish, and a confidence level.
Read the article → -
For Tax Practitioners — The Substantive Issues
A technical reference for solicitors and accountants advising on the post-April 2026 inheritance tax regime as it applies to unlisted trading-company shares. Anchored to legislation and case-law where it exists.
Read the article → -
Where to Start — A Reading Guide
Seventeen pieces in total — eleven featured on the homepage, six alternative versions and methodology pieces — plus an interactive model and a downloadable Excel companion. One entry-point recommended for each kind of reader.
Read the article → -
The Amount Question and the Timing Question
The April 2026 inheritance tax reform raises two analytically separate questions: how much intergenerational business wealth should be taxed at, and when the tax should fall. This piece sets out the strongest case for each timing option (death-based, realisation-based) in its own voice, at roughly equal length, without a closing verdict from the publication.
Read the article → -
Eight Hours, Four AI Tools, One Founder — and Four Weeks of Practice Behind It
This publication came together in roughly eight hours of real work — at the fast end of four weeks of intensive AI-tool-assisted work that has spanned websites, code, books, and The Many Builders. Same person, same tools, very different outputs at very different intensities. The honest version of what happened, what it implies, and what it does not.
Read the article → -
What the Inheritance Tax Reform Means for UK Tech
A plain English explainer for founders, angels, VCs, and the people who fund and build UK tech companies.
Read the article → -
UK Tech and the IHT Reform — The Funding Stack and the Fiscal Model
Technical depth on each part of the UK tech funding stack — founders, angels, VCs, PE, EIS, LPs, early employees — and a 25-year fiscal model of what each policy option means for the Treasury, including second-order effects.
Read the article → -
Inheritance Tax and the UK Tech Cohort
What is being argued, what the disagreement turns on, and what different evidence would mean — for the founders, investors, and operators driving the new economy.
Read the article → -
On the Principle — Both Cases at Equal Length
The operational analysis takes the principle of taxing very large intergenerational business-wealth transfers as given. This piece sets out the strongest cases on the prior question, on both sides — for and against — at roughly equal length, in the voice of each side's strongest defenders, with no closing verdict from the publication.
Read the article →