The government failed to properly inform farmers and the public about the new Residential Zoned Land Tax, according to one Irish MEP.
Sinn Féin MEP Chris MacManus said that the government did not ensure that farmers were properly informed and aware of the impacts and processes involved in the tax.
The RZLT is an annual tax that will be calculated at 3% of the market value of the land within the scope of the tax, which includes land zoned for residential development and land that could be connected to services.
Farmland is not exempt from the tax. Landowners were able to challenge the inclusion of their land in the maps or request a change of zoning of their land, but only in certain circumstances.
MacManus met with affected farmers and landowners in Carndonagh, Co. Donegal, yesterday (Monday, January 23).
Following the meeting, the Midlands-Northwest MEP said: “I have been meeting many farmers in my constituency, including here in Carndonagh, and many of them across the country were not made properly aware by the state of new implications and processes concerning the new tax.
“Authorities zoning or rezoning a farmer’s land, without their knowledge or consent, is an appalling practice which I unreservedly condemn,” he added.
“If farmers have found their farmland zoned for the tax in that situation, the onus shouldn’t be left solely with the farmer to resolve this.”
According to MacManus, farmers who have been caught unaware of the tax “will be overwhelmed by the sudden administrative burden that will be thrust on top of their many other concerns”.
The MEP also described the prospect of farmers on low incomes paying significant sums of this new tax for land that is already in agricultural use as “an unacceptable scenario”.
He called for the government to allow landowners a further period to make a submission.
This, MacManus said, would “accommodate the farmers that were not properly informed due to poor government communication”.
“The lack of transparency around the RZLT is the government’s failure, not the public’s. Farmers and rural homeowners should not be penalised for the state neglecting it duty to communicate and inform effectively,” he said.