Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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1000. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on the continuance of tax relief available to help farmers to pass their farms to relatives and maintain a working farm within the family unit; if he will support the maintenance of such relief; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35380/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Capital Gains Tax Relief (CGT) is available to farmers over 55 years who dispose of certain qualifying assets. This relief, which is more commonly known as “retirement relief”, continues to be available having been in place for many years. Qualifying assets relevant to farming include:

- The chargeable business asset of the individual which he/she has owned for at least ten years up to the disposal date and which have been his/her chargeable business assets throughout the 10 years.

- Land leased under the Scheme of Early Retirement from Farming, where for a period of not less than 10 years prior to the land being leased it was owned by the person claiming relief and was farmed by him throughout that period.

- Land which was let at any time in the 15 years before disposal but, prior to its first letting, was farmed for 10 years by the owner and the disposal is to a child.

There are two separate elements to this type of CGT relief:

a) Disposal of a business or a farm to one's child; Irrespective of the amount of consideration for the disposal, full relief may be claimed by a person on the disposal to his child. If the child disposes of the asset within 6 years clawback applies. To incentivise earlier lifetime transfer of holdings it was announced in Budget 2012 that, from January 2014, the amount of full relief in the case of transfers to children will be reduced from an unlimited amount to €3 million for those aged over 66 years of age, but will be retained at the unlimited level for those aged 55-66 years. A two year lead in period for these changes was put in place to allow for an orderly transition.b) Disposal of a business or farm to a person other than one's child; Where the consideration is less that €750,000 there is full relief for those aged over 55 years. Where the consideration is over €750,000 marginal relief is available which reduces the CGT payable to an amount equal to half the excess over €750,000. Budget 2012 introduced from January 2014 onwards a lowering of the amount of full relief in these cases from €750,000 to €500,000 for those aged over 66 years of age. The level will be retained at the 750,000 level for those aged 55-66 years.

The range of tax measures applicable to the agricultural sector announced in recent Budgets reflect the Government's commitment to supporting younger farmers through encouraging earlier inter-generational transfer of farm holdings and minimising the costs associated with transfer of farm holdings. These measures have created a positive environment for structural change to occur and will help facilitate meeting the ambitious expansion targets planned in the Food Harvest 2020 strategy.

The issue of further changes to these reliefs in the future is a matter in the first instance for the Minister for Finance and I will continue to liaise closely with Minister Noonan in relation to possible taxation measures linked to policy priorities in my Department.