The photo of Michelle O’Neill (First Minister) and Andrew Muir (Agriculture Minister) in support of the farmers’ tax protests needs to be called out. The farming sector already receives a wide range of government handouts, subsidies and watered-down regulations denied to the wider business sectors across Northern Ireland. The one that stands out locally is the 100 per cent business rates relief they receive, which the rest of business across Northern Ireland has to pay and is used to fund the very local services the farmers and their families use daily. They are already not paying their fair share of local taxation.
Compare this position with other sectors of the economy, such as high street retail and hospitality, which is struggling to even exist, never mind make a profit. Many local family-owned businesses are now paying the world’s highest level of property taxation in the form of business rates – just for being in business – and this tax has to be paid whether a profit is made our not. What makes local business owners’ blood boil is knowing that Stormont was provided the funding through the Barnet Consequential from Westminster to help reduce the rates burden, but they never passed it on.
I have heard various agriculture commentators in the media play the victim card with statements like “These farms are passed on from generation to generation” and “75 per cent of all farms will be affected by this tax”. Well, they should spare a thought for the retailers and hospitality businesses who also traditionally owned businesses that could be passed from one generation to the next, most of which are now bankrupt and worthless, as evidenced by the empty high streets in every village, town and city across Northern Ireland.
When one considers that agricultural land values have never fallen in Northern Ireland since records began, it is impossible to have any sympathy for farmers.
When the Ulster Farmers’ Union claims that 75 per cent of farmers will be affected by inheritance tax, what I hear is that 75 per cent of farmers are in fact millionaires.
Given the constant messaging from Stormont about raising taxes and their refusal to balance the books or forward already-received financial support to the retail and hospitality sectors, our politicians should not be appearing in photo shoots supporting tax cuts for wealthy farmers who are already not paying their fair share when compared with other sectors of the economy.
Patrick Murdock, Newry, Co Down
