Farmers hit back against 'unfair' land tax
The meeting heard that farmers have to price the land themselves.
The Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT) is "unfair" on farmers, a committee meeting of Mayo Co Council has heard.
Martin Gilvarry, the farming representative on the Council’s Environmental Development strategic policy committee (SPC), told last week’s meeting the RZLT is causing a lot of anger among farmers.
“When you have a farmer farming land who is told that a tax is going to be put on it and they have to price it themselves, that is unfair on the farmers.
“It is unjust what has happened. There is a lot of hurt among farmers, people were not aware of what was happening with this.”
Director of Services Katherine McConnell said RZLT was a land activation tax that was "causing hurt" but said there are waivers in place for actively farmed land and a deadline until the end of May to make submissions.
Cllr Martin McLoughlin suggested a local media campaign to raise awareness.
Responding to Cllr Mark Duffy, Ms McConnell said she had no further insight into what impact recent ministerial comments around zoning more land for residential use will have on the county's three Local Area Plans (LAP). Castlebar's LAP has been adopted, Westport's is due to be adopted before the end of May and Ballina's is being examined by environmental consultants.
