Social Democrats want to undermine Irish family farms – Heydon

The Irish family farm model would be decimated by the Social Democrats plans to undermine farm succession and saddle family farms with significant inheritance tax bills, Fine Gael spokesperson on agriculture and Kildare South T.D. Martin Heydon has said. 

Heydon said: “Fine Gael’s plan for agriculture is about respect for farmers and listening to their concerns. Farm succession is a major issue farmers have raised and Fine Gael is committed to introducing a comprehensive policy to address this area within 100 days of the new government.

“Meanwhile the Social Democrats want to undermine farm succession.

“Buried in the Revenue Raising segment of their manifesto is a commitment to “examine the fairness and appropriateness of the current regimes around Business and Agricultural Relief for Capital Acquisition Tax“. What they fail to say is they plan to reduce these reliefs and open family farms up to huge tax liabilities that run into a cost of €60m for farms and businesses.

“You only have to look at the chaos in the UK and in Northern Ireland after the UK Labour Party announced plans to hike up the inheritance tax exposure for farms there to see how damaging this proposal is. Instead of encouraging the next generation of farmers, the Social Democrats want to make it more difficult to pass on farms viably from one generation to the next. 

“Fine Gael is committed to retaining these vital reliefs. We will not allow others to undermine them”.