6,000 land leasers to lose entitlements

Curly Judge

According to this weeks Farmers Journal the Dept of Ag have decided to terminate entitlements for 6,000 farmers if they had them leased out during the reference year of 2013.
My brother had a heart attack in 2012 and leased his land and entitlements for 5 years to a local man.
He now finds that his particular group have been targeted and must decide whether they will sell, gift or lose their farm subsidies by the 15th of May next.
This would seem to fly in the face of earlier Dept initiatives where tax incentives were given to such farmers who leased their land for a minimum of five years.
Does anybody know of the reasoning behind this and how do they think it's going to play out?
Bringing down the shutters in such a preemptive fashion [no warning was given that 2013 would be the reference year] smacks to me of retrospective legislation?

rancher

Curly Judge wrote: »

According to this weeks Farmers Journal the Dept of Ag have decided to terminate entitlements for 6,000 farmers if they had them leased out during the reference year of 2013.
My brother had a heart attack in 2012 and leased his land and entitlements for 5 years to a local man.
He now finds that his particular group have been targeted and must decide whether they will sell, gift or lose their farm subsidies by the 15th of May next.
This would seem to fly in the face of earlier Dept initiatives where tax incentives were given to such farmers who leased their land for a minimum of five years.
Does anybody know of the reasoning behind this and how do they think it's going to play out?
Bringing down the shutters in such a preemptive fashion [no warning was given that 2013 would be the reference year] smacks to me of retrospective legislation?

EU seem to be showing no sympathy on this one, contact a good ag consultant is your best bet

JohnBoy

Often the department have Force Majeure exceptions in their regulations.

Your brother may be accomodated under such a situation?

worth asking about at least

Curly Judge

JohnBoy wrote: »

Often the department have Force Majeure exceptions in their regulations.

Your brother may be accomodated under such a situation?

worth asking about at least

He informed me today that there is no Force Majeure provision in this piece of administration.
This legislation seems to fall hardest on the sick, infirm and widowed members of the farming community.
I know it is just another form of dole and a privilege and not a right but I just wonder how a civil servants pension cannot be touched and yet this can be removed without as much as a by your leave?

theaceofspies

Curly Judge wrote: »

He informed me today that there is no Force Majeure provision in this piece of administration.
This legislation seems to fall hardest on the sick, infirm and widowed members of the farming community.
I know it is just another form of dole and a privilege and not a right but I just wonder how a civil servants pension cannot be touched and yet this can be removed without as much as a by your leave?

Because the Labour Party are in Coalition and their Mantra is protect the public sector at all costs and to "Hell or High Water" with the rest of the population. The public sector unions primarily fund the Labour Party therefore the Piper calls the tune on this one. FG are happy with this agenda as they trade this their agenda in the "Programme for Government"

Curly Judge

theaceofspies wrote: »

Because the Labour Party are in Coalition and their Mantra is protect the public sector at all costs and to "Hell or High Water" with the rest of the population. The public sector unions primarily fund the Labour Party therefore the Piper calls the tune on this one. FG are happy with this agenda as they trade this their agenda in the "Programme for Government"

As usual they are hiding behind EU legislation.
Does anybody have access to the particular piece of bureaucracy, and the logic behind it?

Miname

get a contract drawn up where he gifts the entitlements across to the land leaser for the term of the lease whereby it will be gifted back to at the end of the lease. most of these will set out a peercentage that will be handed back on an annual basis to the land owner. if your brother has a low sfp and the lad leasing may end up handing back a fairly reasonable entitlement package.

Curly Judge

Miname wrote: »

get a contract drawn up where he gifts the entitlements across to the land leaser for the term of the lease whereby it will be gifted back to at the end of the lease. most of these will set out a peercentage that will be handed back on an annual basis to the land owner. if your brother has a low sfp and the lad leasing may end up handing back a fairly reasonable entitlement package.

It seems that the complication with that is that while the leaser may get away without paying Capital Gains tax on the sale either because of the forced sale aspect, or because of the technicality that my brother did not purchase the entitlements in the first place, but was granted them by the DAG.
It is not nearly so clear that the purchaser will be able to escape paying the tax when/if he sell them back . This could lead to a very slow, reluctant market in 2016?

rangler1

Curly Judge wrote: »

It seems that the complication with that is that while the leaser may get away without paying Capital Gains tax on the sale either because of the forced sale aspect, or because of the technicality that my brother did not purchase the entitlements in the first place, but was granted them by the DAG.
It is not nearly so clear that the purchaser will be able to escape paying the tax when/if he sell them back . This could lead to a very slow, reluctant market in 2016?

Surely if he sells them back at the same price as he got them for, there is no capital gain, so no tax, however can you be sure he'll sell them back.
I think that you'd be better to get paid enough the first day, so if he did kick on the deal, at least you have been paid fair,
might be hard enough to get them back