Kevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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113. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will consider extending a specific tax concession as announced in the recent budget (details supplied) to sporting organisations. [6305/17]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I assume the Deputy is referring to the tax relief available on certain income from the long term leasing of agricultural land under Section 664 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, which was amended and extended in Budget 2015. The relief is available, subject to a maximum limit, where farm land is leased to a qualifying lessee for a period of 5 years or more.

The 2014 Agri-Taxation Review found that long-term leasing has a number of advantages over the more traditional conacre system and it recommended the continuation and enhancement of measures to assist in rebalancing the market in its favour, including the amendments brought forward to this tax incentive. This tax relief has a very specific policy aim of accelerating land mobility and productivity through making additional agricultural land available to farmers on a medium to long term basis for husbandry purposes.

There are a number of specific criteria that must be met in order to qualify for this relief, including the use of the land itself, that the lease must be completed in writing, it must run for a minimum of 5 years, and that it cannot be made between connected parties. The incentive is targeted and designed to achieve a specific policy objective in terms of making more land available for husbandry and therefore increased agricultural production. Extending the relief such that it was available for the leasing of agricultural land to sporting organisations, would have no impact on the achievement of the socio-economic objectives for which the exemption was designed, and could potentially, lead to circumvention of the original policy intention.