It was Kilkenny farmer Bill O’Keeffe who said it best. “This is a budget that tried to do a lot for the cost of living, but not much for the cost of doing business,” the IFA farm business chair said on RTÉ’s Prime Time.
He was exactly right. Farmers are taxpayers and parents and partners and carers, just like everyone else. They will welcome the easing of personal taxation measures, particularly on multiple income (but none of them high income) families.
Many farm families have three income streams, with both partners working off-farm, as well as on-farm to pay the bills and provide a decent standard of living.
That is because farming is a low-margin business in a high-cost economy. And that will not change as a result of this budget. In fairness, no single budget could possibly address the nature of doing business in Ireland.
For larger farm businesses, particularly labour-intensive operations like fruit and vegetable, mushroom, pig and poultry farms, the latest increase in the minimum wage will hit.
There are some things that will help. The €1bn pledged to Irish Water should reduce wastewater pollution of rivers and streams, and may help in the battle to retain the nitrates derogation.
The €100/ha for tillage farmers is welcome, as are the increases in ewe and dairy and beef calf payments.
The attempt to reduce the perceived trend of wealthy people using land as a form of land transfer has to be welcomed, although there are concerns that it might not prove effective.
I understand that large sums of money – up to €4m – can be left to someone with the instruction that it be used for the purchase of agricultural property, and that can entitle the person inheriting the land to agricultural relief, provided they fulfil the other criteria. This loophole is not closed by the budget move announced.
The fear is being expressed by ifac and others that it might, however, catch out farm families where the older generation has been unable to farm themselves and have set it as conacre for some years, perhaps even within the family unit. That will need to be ironed out.
Registered for VAT
Most farmers are not registered for VAT, and will be glad to see the VAT rebate increased to 5.1%.
This is one measure that recognises that the cost of doing business for small businesses can be crippling, and that small farms aren’t and shouldn’t be VAT-registered, but shouldn’t be penalised for that.
The ICMSA will be glad that its anti-volatility taxation proposal will be developed by the Government. But which Government? There was an eve-of-school-holidays atmosphere in the Dáil chamber on Tuesday.
An election is now an inevitability, and the cost of living, and of doing business, will be a central theme.