ICSA: Farm tax reliefs must be extended

It is essential that the important tax reliefs for farmers are retained after this year in order to ensure that the tradition of generational renewal remains unbroken, the Chairman of the ICSA Rural Development Committee Edmond Phelan has declared.

There is a continuing need to retain this traditional system that has stood since the first adoption of the pattern of settling on particular land emerged. He addressed this matter in response to an observation made by Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, who confirmed in response to a parliamentary question that several important farm-related tax relief schemes are currently under review ahead of Budget 2026.

“These reliefs, such as the Young Trained Farmer stamp duty exemption, the Agricultural Relief from Capital Acquisitions Tax and the Farm Consolidation Relief are not just technical tax measures, they are essential supports that underpin efforts to improve farm viability, encourage land mobility and crucially, to support young people to enter and remain in farming. There should be no disincentives to farm transfers,” he said.

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Farmers support emission proposals

The three principal organisations representing the farming community in the country have expressed their support for the proposals to reduce emissions in order to slow the process of global warming when addressing the significant conference held in Dublin Castle last week.

The Agriculture & Climate Change: Science into Action meeting was introduced by An Taoiseach Micheál Martin. Over the weekend, he attended the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice in France, so the environment has been a matter about which he has been made very much aware of in the past week.

All three farming spokesmen express similar approaches, reminding the Taoiseach that the farmers have demonstrated their desire and ability to provide nourishment for a quickly-growing population but are frequently stymied by rafts of regulation to an unbalanced degree.

Farmers are better positioned than anyone to understand what is required since most of them have worked their land over several generations.

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