ICMSA want government to exempt farm environmental construction from mica levy
THE president of ICMSA has said that Budget 2023 sends “mixed messages” to the large numbers of farmers trying to invest in environmental improvements for their farms.
Pat McCormack said that while the accelerated capital allowances available for slurry storage was meant to give some momentum to those ready to engage with contractors, the decision to put a 10% levy on the kind of concrete products that would be the construction material has effectively negated the benefit of changing the capital allowances, as well as undermining the TAMS scheme. “It’s already obvious that the combination of both these measures is going to end up with them cancelling each other out.
“We have the Government effectively forcing farmers to build greater slurry storage capacity and we have farmers ready to do that but hampered by rampant construction inflation and a shortage of contractors.
“Now, we have the Government effectively putting 10% on the costs of that slurry storage construction through the mica levy and that’s going to mean a drastic slowing
Pat McCormack.
down of this work – if not an outright stop,” said Mr McCormack. The ICMSA president said that there was a way forward if the Government was willing to recognise the obvious difference between farm building projects for environmental purposes and other building projects.
“We don’t think it would tax any legislator or civil servants’ ingenuity to make the distinction between these environmental projects and other general building work. Increasing slurry storage capacity and other on-farm environmental improvements should be exempt from the mica levy.
“We were already struggling to get the building done and the Government through this Mica levy have – at the stroke of a pen – effectively made their own goal of on-farm environmental improvements impossible.
“We think that the Government should certainly revisit this and ‘get their policy ducks in-a-row’.
“There wouldn’t be any serious objection to it because – as the Government itself says – environmental improvements to farms are an absolute requirement if we are to even consider achieving the 25% reduction in agri-emissions that they have deemed a national priority,” he noted.