single farm payment

mugsyy

lads looking for a bit of advice

i am farming land on behalf of my grandmother. she is in her 80's and the land had been badly neglected since my grandfather died a few years back. i have tidyed up the land and have it in reasonable order.
she leaves any buying and selling of stock and all the bills to me, i give her a few quid at the end of the year and shes happy with the arrangement.
up to now she has been claiming the single farm payment herself and i have had nothing to do with this end. in the last fortnight the department have sent out correspondence querying whether she is an active farmer and she needs to back up her answer with bills, receipts etc. Because i pay all the bills she has asked me to send in the reply.
it is only now that i am seeing her level of single farm payment and to me it seems very low.
we are farming 5.70 hectares and they are paying her £61 (approx €76) per hectare. It only comes to about £ 350. I had expected this to be a lot higher. how have they assessed this payment?
I have been farming the land for her for about 3 years now and keep about 10 head on it. Prior to this she was only keeping abut 4 or 5 head. Did they assess her on the quiet year and is there any way i can now claim for more since we have upped the stocking rate.

Sorry if i sound naive for i havent a clue about this single farm payment.
by the way we are in the north although im sure the south is pretty similar.

redbeaard

Jeusus, there's a lot you need to know about this so.

I'm not an expert by the way but this will get you started. And open to correction of course.

The Single Farm Payment is calculated on area farmed and not head of cattle. In recent years the department has been getting very strict on what counts as eligible land and have been know to exclude a bush for a field using very detailed satellite images. (OK so it was a fairly big whin/gorse bush but still)

Up untill this year the amount you are paid per hecter (which I think was calculated years ago using a dartboard and a bingo set, I don't know it was before I started farming) was different for every farmer. This year they are starting to bring everyones payments per hecter to the same level, but it'll happen gradually over the next 4 years. This is good for your granny as it should bring the payments up to about €170 per hectar by 2019. The amount of land you farmed and is in decent grazing state in the years 2013 and 2015, whichever is lower, is what counts.

Your granny is an active farmer with you acting as a farm manager, should be no problem there.

It's possible you have had land cut out of it as inelegible which you have restored again.
You should really get someone who knows their stuff to look at the SFP forms you've been getting the last few years. Teagasc offer this service to their members, and could give you a lot more advice beside, for about €150 per year.

Yes it's bloody complicated, especially it you read the official documentation.

Good luck.

Nekarsulm

The SFP was set in a Reference year back in the 90's. So whatever schemes your granddad claimed in that year set the payment level. So depending on his system at the time he may not have been collecting 10 or 22 month premiums on bullocks, nor Slaughter premium or Suckler cow premium either.

AntrimGlens

Call up your local DARD direct office and ask to speak to someone in the BPS section. Now tell them what you've said here and want to come in for a meeting, although as they're all doing Active Farmer inspections at the minute you might be waiting a while to get a date that they can see you.
I presume by the very fact that she was one of the 3,000 or so who received the active farmer letter that she submitted her BPS form this year, therefore i'm assuming that the ten head of stock are in her name and herd number?
You're cutting it tight to get things in shape as all documentation has to be back to the dept office by 3rd August, so I'd get onto DARD pronto. Good luck.

mugsyy

Thanks men for all the advice.
Since the cattle are in her herd number and there is cattle coming and going every year i think it is blatantly obvious she is an active farmer but there seems to zero common sense when it comes to dard.
i sent off all the evidence they asked for (fertilizer receipts, meal receipts etc + proof of payment) - on the documentation they sent out they are actually requesting a set of accounts 'prepared by an independent accountant' however it would cost more to have these prepared than she is receiving as a single farm payment so i didnt send these in. Hopefully what i did send suffices
the ridiculous thing is 2 days after the letter landed requesting proof of being an active farmer, another letter landed notifying us of a TB test on the herd.
Thats not to mention it would take a barrister to decipher some of the stuff they send out - i work full time in administration in the agriculture industry and i still had serious trouble getting my head round it all. do they realise a lot of the small farmers in this country are elderly people, how they expect them to understand all this beats me. my poor granny was completely bamboozled by it all, poor woman thought she had done something wrong.

regarding the low payments, yes it seems when they assessed her in the 90's she must have been carrying low stocking numbers as i checked her maps and she does seem to be claiming for the full area. as pointed out by red beard her payments are going to increase every year from here on so at least that is some good news for her

again thanks everyone for taking the time to reply.

patjack

re: the set of accounts they requested, they wouldn't have had to be done by an independent accountant as there is no requirement for such. However if she is actively farming as you state then there is an onus to have submitted a form 11 return each year there has been farming activity.

Has this been done? If so then a copy of the form 11 should suffice. If not and if they come back to you looking for accounts you may have to get an accountant to do up returns for all of the years which weren't done.

mugsyy

patjack wrote: »

re: the set of accounts they requested, they wouldn't have had to be done by an independent accountant as there is no requirement for such. However if she is actively farming as you state then there is an onus to have submitted a form 11 return each year there has been farming activity.

Has this been done? If so then a copy of the form 11 should suffice. If not and if they come back to you looking for accounts you may have to get an accountant to do up returns for all of the years which weren't done.

whats a form 11 again?

patjack

mugsyy wrote: »

whats a form 11 again?

its the form that gets sent to revenue with your accounts extracts each year. It's required for all sole traders i.e. farmers as well.

mugsyy

patjack wrote: »

re: the set of accounts they requested, they wouldn't have had to be done by an independent accountant as there is no requirement for such. However if she is actively farming as you state then there is an onus to have submitted a form 11 return each year there has been farming activity.

Has this been done? If so then a copy of the form 11 should suffice. If not and if they come back to you looking for accounts you may have to get an accountant to do up returns for all of the years which weren't done.

sorry, googled it, a self assessed tax return for the southern revenue. we are in the north. hopefully they wont come back looking for the equivalent in the north because there is none. talking about an 84 year old pensioner who had 4 or 5 cows - not much to declare

Understand the rules may be different in the free state but they definitely asking for accounts done by an independent accountant -
quote from the guide they sent with the letter
'Livestock Farming- Farm Accounts prepared by an independent qualified
accountant which must include the area being farmed.
These are management accounts and should cover the
period in 2015 in which your agricultural activity took place'

patjack

mugsyy wrote: »

sorry, googled it, a self assessed tax return for the southern revenue. we are in the north. hopefully they wont come back looking for the equivalent in the north because there is none. talking about an 84 year old pensioner who had 4 or 5 cows - not much to declare

Understand the rules may be different in the free state but they definitely asking for accounts done by an independent accountant -
quote from the guide they sent with the letter
'Livestock Farming- Farm Accounts prepared by an independent qualified
accountant which must include the area being farmed.
These are management accounts and should cover the
period in 2015 in which your agricultural activity took place'

Get ya, if you were to get away with 2015 mgt accounts you'd be doing ok. It still means you'll have to engage an accountant to do so, probably. Hope you get things sorted.