The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has urged Minister for Finance, Jack Chambers to announce the exemption of farmland from the Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT) before Budget 2025 on October 1.
The IFA farm business chair Bill O’Keeffe said that such an announcement from the minister would “alleviate the fear and anxiety felt by many farmers who have farmland that falls under the residential zoning development plans”.
His comments follow the formal adoption of a motion that called on the government to exempt active farmland from the RZLT by members of the Fine Gael parliamentary party, according to Fine Gael TD, Michael Ring.
While the motion, brought forward by Deputy Ring, is “positive and aligns with IFA’s policy of not imposing this unfair tax on many farmers around Ireland”, O’Keeffe said this needs to be confirmed and “clarity” must be given to farmers.
RZLT farmland exemption
The RZLT is an annual tax that will apply from 2025 at a rate of 3% of the land’s market value. The tax is aimed at increasing housing supply by activating zoned, serviced residential development lands for housing.
Commenting on the RZLT following the “commitment” from Fine Gael to exempt working farmers from the tax, according to Deputy Ring, the IFA farm business chair said:
“This penal tax, if implemented, could result in the forced sale of farmland, potentially undermining the livelihoods of farmers.
“This could happen without any consideration given to potential buyers, or the subsequent delivery of new homes, on this land.” O’Keeffe added that the tax is “completely unjust and must not be forced on farmers”.
“The Minister for Finance, Jack Chambers, has it within his powers to exempt farmland from the RZLT in the upcoming Budget 2025 and the subsequent Finance Act,” the IFA farm business chair said.
Appeals
Meanwhile, An Bord Pleanála confirmed that no appeals have been made to the RZLT since September 2023. Between March and September 2023, however, a total of 654 appeals were made to the body.
These RZLT cases received by An Bord Pleanála include appeals made in relation to lands at a farm in Tralee and lands at two different farms in Killarney, Co. Kerry, as well as a farm in north Co. Dublin.
Local authorities published annual draft RZLT maps on February 1, 2024, that identify lands that fall within the scope of the tax, as well as lands which they propose to exclude from the previous year’s annual final maps for 2025.
Landowners and other interested parties had until April 1, 2024, to make a submission to the relevant local authority about whether or not land on this annual draft map meets the criteria for being subject to the tax.
The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage said that the legislation allows landowners to make submissions to:
- Highlight if they consider that the land included on the map did not meet the criteria;
- Propose a correction to the date on which land first met the criteria;
- Support the exclusion of land where it is identified on the map that the local authority proposes to exclude such land;
- Propose the inclusion of land, not identified on the map, if they feel such land meets the criteria.
Determinations on submissions were issued by the relevant local authority by July 1, 2024. The landowner may appeal the local authority decision to An Bord Pleanála by August 1, 2024.
The submissions, appeal decisions and rezoning requests will be considered by the local authority prior to the publication of an annual final map on January 31, 2025, identifying the land which will be liable to the tax from February 1, 2025.