Farmers: Minister not telling truth about incomes

ANGRY farmers last night attacked the Agriculture Minister for being deliberately “misleading” over how much tax they pay.

The Irish Farmers’ Association accused Brendan Smith of not telling the truth about the incomes of its members.

IFA president Padraig Walshe hit out after the Government revealed farmers paid just 1.3% of the national income tax yield, contributing an average of €1,895 last year.

The €173 million total from farmers, which includes money recovered via special investigations carried out by the Revenue Commissioners, was revealed in the Agriculture Department’s annual report and is dwarfed by the 79.3% of income tax collected from the PAYE sector.

The IFA said the comparison was unfair as Ireland’s 101,000 farmers earn much less than other groups in the economy.

Mr Walshe said it was “mischievous” of the minister to use income tax yield as a measure of farmers’ contribution to the national economy.

“Why doesn’t the minister tell the public the truth on farm taxation when the reality is the average family income from farming is a mere €18,100, compared to the public sector where the average is €48,300?

“There is no mystery about the low tax yield from farmers; the real problem is low incomes and the minister should face up to this,” he said.

There were no figures for farmers working off the land for last year, but in 2005 this group paid €319m in tax. The Revenue details showed PAYE workers paid an average of €4,943 last year.

The report also stated direct payments to farmers in 2007 totalled over €1.92 billion, when levies were deducted this figure dropped to €1.86bn.

The Single Farm Payment saw €1.22bn paid out to the 124,500 applicants in 2007. The average payment was €9,871.

More than 40% of farm holders had an off-farm occupation in 2006, as had more than one third of spouses, according to the report.

There were 7,376 claims for Farm Assist, a means-tested social welfare scheme for low-income farm families last year.