The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) president Francie Gorman has said that the deferral of the Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT) to allow for the exclusion of farmers is “a step forward”.
The comments follow reports that the government intends to postpone the implementation of the controversial tax for one year to ensure active farmland will be excluded from its remit.
Concerns had been repeatedly raised that the scope of the tax, which was due to come into force on February 1 next year, would take in sizeable portions of active farmland.
According to sources, the government has given a “clear undertaking” that it is not the intention for farm families to be impacted by the tax, and that efforts to develop a solution to that issue will be made before it is implemented.
RZLT
IFA president Francie Gorman said the farm organisation had raised the concerns of farmers “at every opportunity over the last two years”, while it is also a key priority in the IFA pre-budget submission.
“This has been causing unnecessary stress and huge worry among many farm families throughout the country who were due be impacted by this unaffordable taxation measure next February.
“Farmers should never have been included in this tax.
“Expecting farmers to pay 3% of the value of their land in an annual tax that bears no relation to the income earning potential from the land is wrong. In effect, it would force farmers to sell the land,” he said.
Many farmers across the country have had to appeal the inclusion of their lands on draft local authority RZLT maps to An Bord Pleanála.
IFA Farm Business Committee chair Bill O’Keeffe reiterated his call on the government to remove all actively farmed land permanently from the RZLT.
He said that the tax would cause a great deal of distress for landowners
“Our position remains that farmland should be excluded, and we will continue to campaign for that.
“An IFA delegation will meet the Minister for Finance Jack Chambers on the farm of our county chair in Mayo this morning and another delegation will meet Minister [for Housing] Darragh O’Brien in north Dublin. The issue will be front and centre at both meetings.
“We have always emphasised the critical importance of excluding all actively farmed agricultural land from this unfair and punitive tax measure which, without a deferral, is due next February,” O’Keeffe said.