Press Room

Following a meeting this week with Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen, Macra na Feirme national president Colm Markey said it was vital that Stock Relief for young trained farmers be renewed in the upcoming Budget. This measure aids young farmers to build up stock numbers during their first four years in production and allows all farmers to write off 25% of the increase in the value of their stock.

Macra also drew the Minister's attention to alterations required in Capital Gains Tax to allow a widening of the retirement relief to include land leased to a family member and subsequently disposed of to the same family member.

Mr Markey pointed out that land leased and subsequently transferred under the Early Retirement Scheme is exempt from Capital Gains Tax. However land leased outside of the scheme, if transferred, does not qualify for retirement relief and the transfer is subject to Capital Gains Tax. 'Situations will arise where farmers who want to transfer their farms to family members will be ineligible for Capital Gains Tax relief because they leased the land prior to the transfer. This slows down the transfer of farms to young farmers,' said Mr. Markey.

Macra also drew the Minister's attention to the need for further measures to ensure that biofuels are a profitable enterprise for interested farmers. These include a planting grant of EUR2800/ha for Miscanthus and EUR2400 for Willow and the removal of VAT on rhizomes and willow sticks.

Macra also believes that both the compensatory allowance payments and the energy payments should be paid to farmers. Currently farmers who receive the €45 per ha EU energy crops payment lose the Area Based Compensatory Allowance.

'It is also vital that the anomaly is removed whereby farmers in the REPS scheme who decide to grow energy crops lose their REPS payment on land used for energy crops,' he added.

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