Donegal’s farming community face stiff new taxes and possibly heavy fines for farm machinery.
Tractors are all liable for tax
A new law comes into effect on October 1st next requiring all farm machinery to be taxed depending how long it is on the road.
The county’s farmers are now being advised that all farm vehicles must be registered or else they face prosecution and risk having their machines impounded.
The Tirconail Tribune reports the new road tax regulation will have implications for tens of thousands of farmers across the country.
County Donegal has a farm spread of almost 635,000 acres and according to CSO officials the base number of tractors and other farm machines registered in Donegal is much too small to calculate among a population of 9,240 active farms.
From October 1st all mechanically propelled farm machinery including quad bikes, vintage tractors, combine harvesters and forage machines must be either taxed for road usage or else recorded and registered as ‘off the road’.
This will need a form known as an RF100 that must be filled in and stamped at a Garda station to declare how long it will remain of the road. They will also have to provide a logbook and vehicle registration details.
Anyone caught with an untaxed machine will face an on the spot fine of €60 and will no longer be able to declare a retrospective off the road status.
Tax arrears will also be sought where a machine has not previously been taxed and this can date back to the date of purchase, which in many instances could be more than twenty years ago.
Only 63,080 tractors were taxed last year but as many as 100,000 of these running around the roads and farmyards of Ireland at the moment.
A CSO official conceded that the numbers of farm machines that are taxed in Donegal is much too low for calculation or estimation.
In many instances and especially in border counties like Donegal, it is believed by the tax authorities that many tractors have been ‘imported’ without any notification to the licensing authorities in the Republic. It is believed that many second hand tractors in Donegal have been brought over from England or Northern Ireland and few have been registered.
This poses a huge headache for farmers since these machines must now get a vehicle registration certificate. This is necessary in order to have the machine declared for tax or off the road.
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