Tax reliefs needed to boost energy efficiency
Sole traders account for 60% of 516,000 registered businesses. As most farms are sole traders in tax terms, farmers are discriminated against under the present tax code, he said.
Under the relevant relief, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland has an accelerated capital allowance scheme for energy-efficient equipment purchases allowing companies (those paying corporation tax) to write off the full cost of approved equipment against tax in the year of purchase.
“There are a number of equipment categories in the accelerated capital allowance scheme which have potential for uptake in the farm sector and we want the matter dealt with in Budget 2017 by extending the scheme for energy efficient equipment to sole-traders,” said Mr McCabe.
“Such a change would help Ireland to meet its challenging climate change commitments and remove another inexplicable and blatant discrimination in the tax code that disadvantages sole-traders relative to companies,” he said.
