Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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166. To ask the Minister for Finance the different tax exemptions available for young farmers and for all farmers; if he has secured European Union approval to continue the exemptions, following his budget 2023 speech in which he outlined that he was seeking same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55844/22]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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As I announced in my Budget 2023 speech in September, there are five agri-tax reliefs that are due to expire at the end of this year.

They are:

(1) the Young Trained Farmer Stamp Duty Relief;

(2) the Farm Consolidation Stamp Duty Relief;

(3) the Farm Restructuring CGT Relief;

(4) the Young Trained Farmer Stock Relief; and,

(5) the Registered Farm Partnership Stock Relief

As each of these reliefs is categorised as a state aid, extending them requires European Commission approval under the Agricultural Block Exemption Regulation or ABER, and that ABER needs to be in effect for the full duration of any such extension.

The existing ABER is due to expire at the end of 2022, with a new ABER expected to be in place from 1 January 2023 to run for at least five years, but this has not yet been formally confirmed.

I had hoped that it would have been confirmed by the European Commission at this point, and had therefore deferred providing for these extensions in Finance Bill 2022 until Committee Stage in the hope that this would be the case.

Unfortunately, for reasons beyond my, or the Government's, power to change, the necessary certainty has not been provided by the Commission as yet, so the only option open to me legislatively in Finance Bill 2022 at this time is to provide for 6 month extensions of each of the five reliefs to end-June 2023.

I fully expect, and have been advised by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine that the new ABER will be in operation from 1 January, 2023, and if that is the case I will look, at the earliest opportunity in 2023, to extend the five reliefs in line with my original intentions for them. That is to extend the first three named by three years to the end of 2025, and the two stock reliefs by two years to the end of 2024.