Concerns have been raised that a “significant” amount of farmland could fall within the scope of the Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT), while the amount of agricultural land currently zoned appears to be unclarified.
The national farm business chair of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), Bill O’Keeffe has again called on Minister for Finance, Jack Chambers to “act now” and announce that actively farmed land will be exempt from the RZLT.
The tax will apply from 2025 at a rate of 3% of the land’s market value and is aimed at increasing housing supply by activating zoned and serviced residential development lands (including mixed-use lands) for housing.
O’Keeffe said that a “significant” amount of farmland, in almost every county, could fall within the scope of the tax. He also told Agriland that “some farmers aren’t even aware that they are within the scope of the tax yet”.
Agriland reported last week that RZLT maps published by the local authorities, identifying land within the scope of the tax, do not provide an indication of the current land use which means they do not show whether or not land zoned is in agricultural use.
RZLT
Ahead of Budget 2025, O’Keeffe emphasised the “critical importance” of excluding all actively farmed agricultural land, saying that “this situation is causing unnecessary stress and huge worry among many farm families throughout the country”.
Speaking to Agriland, the IFA national farm business chair said: “The tax is totally unworkable for actively farmed land at the edge of towns and villages. What happens is the local authority comes in and decides where it wants to develop next.
“It’s not the farmer looking for ground to be zoned or anything like that. It’s often done without a farmer’s knowledge or permission or any input, any consultation whatsoever.”
“It’s the ground that developers have bought and are sitting on as an asset this tax should be mobilising, but it’s not,” he said adding that the tax is “creating huge amounts of stress for family farms, particularly in the beef sector in the west of Ireland”.
O’Keeffe said he receives calls every week from people across the country who have applied to the local authorities to have their land de-zoned. He said, however, “this hasn’t happened, so they’re all still falling within the scope of tax”.
IFA president, Francie Gorman said the association is not aware of the total amount of farmland zoned under the RZLT, and that he is “very surprised” that, as reported by Agriland, government departments do not have this data immediately to hand.
Budget discussions
Meanwhile, independent senator and member of the Oireachtas committees on agriculture, and housing and panning, Victor Boyhan welcomed Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue’s “renewed intertest” in the RZLT debate.
Agriland understands that Minister McConalogue raised the issue of the RZLT in his first Budget 2025 meeting with Minister Chambers and told him that recognition needs to be afforded to farmers that are genuinely farming land in scope for the tax.
Senator Boyhan said “active land use for sustainable food production” should be exempt from the tax and called for a “robust appeals process so that farmers and landowners can challenge or amend final maps yet to be fully agreed or exempted, if justified”.
Submissions and rezoning requests made by landowners will be considered by local authorities before the annual final map will be published on January 31, 2025, identifying the land liable to the tax on February 1, 2025.