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Farmers ‘live in fear of the tax implications of RZLT'

Farmers are being reminded that the deadline for Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT) returns to Revenue is fast approaching. The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) Farm Business Committee chair Bill O'Keeffe said farmers who have made a submission to dezone their lands must now make a return to Revenue on or before Friday, May 23 to avail of an exemption from RZLT in 2025. This can be done by any individual by submitting a return on the RZLT portal through the Revenue online resources: myAccount or Revenue Online Service (ROS). The advice from the IFA for those who are not familiar with these online portals to engage professional accountancy services to make this return. RZLT All farmers who made submissions to local authorities in the February-March window should have received an acknowledgement of this by April 30. This acknowledgement must be included as part of the RZLT return to Revenue where a farmer is seeking an exemption from the 3% RZLT tax in 2025. 'IFA lobbied for a permanent exemption for actively farmed land throughout 2024. The exemption announced in the Budget 25 speech is unsatisfactory as it only covers this year,' O'Keeffe said. 'The process places undue obligations on many hundreds of affected farmers who may have lands zoned without their knowledge. 'They are now under the scope of this unfair taxation and there were several hoops to jump through to avail of this one-year tax exemption,' he said. Exemption The IFA Farm Business chair said that a one-year exemption from RZLT is not a solution. 'All actively farmed lands must be removed from the scope of RZLT permanently. 'The leaders of the three largest political parties – Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin – gave a commitment to the IFA in advance of last year's general election that they would remove actively farmed land from RZLT, but we have yet to see delivery on this commitment by the current government,' O'Keeffe said. The IFA committee chair called on the Minister for Finance, Pascal Donohoe and the Minister for Housing, James Browne to recognise that the current approach is not the correct instrument to encourage greater delivery of housing. He said that the stated aim of RZLT was to encourage housing development, but the RZLT is doing the exact opposite. 'Affected farmers live in fear of the tax implications of RZLT and its introduction has not increased interest from potential buyers to purchasing zoned land in many cases. 'Housing developers, AHBs (approved housing bodies) and financial lenders all recognise the RZLT liability associated with purchasing zoned land. 'They are standing back from purchasing zoned land in many cases, until the many other obstacles that are restricting housing development – finance, pre-planning investigations, labour and materials – are in place,' he said. O'Keeffe said that the IFA and farmers understand the need for more houses, but RZLT is not the instrument that will solve the current deficit. 'There are many other barriers to the supply of new housing that the government needs to address. 'IFA will continue this campaign to have all farmland permanently excluded from the scope of RZLT,' he added.