Proposals from Commission on Taxation a Further Targeting of the Farming Sector – IFA

IFA President Tim Cullinan said proposals within today’s Commission on Taxation & Welfare (COTW) report disproportionately target farmers.

“These proposals cannot be factored into the upcoming Budget, or any future budgets,” he said.

“We fully understand the wider economic and demographic challenges facing the State. However, this report will only serve to cause uncertainty for farm families. It’s very hard to plan farm succession or future investment with the level of uncertainty this report will cause,” he said.

“Many farms are already at breaking point. To give you some perspective, almost 60% of farms earned less than €20,000 in 2021,” he said.

IFA will be analysing the document in full, but from a first look there are some very damaging and urban-centric proposals.

“Increasing taxes on agri diesel, reducing inheritance tax reliefs or increasing PRSI payments for farmers would be a further targeting of the agri sector. It would also be counter-productive economically as it will slow down both land transfer and on-farm investment.  We are also very concerned at the possibility of including agricultural land in any Site Valuation Tax,” he said.

“We have continually expressed our frustration that the Government did not include a representative from the farming sector on the Commission,” he said. “We raised our concerns about some of the leaks at our recent meeting with Ministers Donohoe and McGrath. Minister Paschal Donohoe has committed to meet with IFA on the report,” he said.