Deadline for RZLT Returns to Revenue is Fri, May 23rd

IFA Farm Business Chair Bill O’Keeffe is reminding farmers who have made a submission to de-zone their lands in the Feb-March 2025 timeframe that they must now make a return to Revenue on or before May 23rd to avail of an exemption from RZLT in 2025.

This can be done by any individual by submitting an  RZLT return on the RZLT portal through the Revenue online resources: myAccount or Revenue Online Service (ROS).

IFA’s advice for those who are not familiar with these online portals to engage professional accountancy services to make this return.

All submissions to local authorities in the February-March window should have received an acknowledgement of this by April 30th. This acknowledgement must be included as part of the RZLT return to Revenue where a farmer is seeking an exemption from the 3% RZLT tax in 2025.

Bill O’Keeffe said “IFA lobbied for a permanent exemption for actively farmed land throughout 2024. The exemption announced in the Budget ‘25 speech is unsatisfactory as it only covers this year.  The process places undue obligations on many hundreds of affected farmers who may have lands zoned without their knowledge. They are now under the scope of this unfair taxation and there were several hoops to jump through to avail of this one-year tax exemption”.

A one-year exemption is not a solution. All actively farmed lands must be removed from the scope of RZLT permanently.  Leaders of the three largest political parties – Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin – gave a commitment to the IFA in advance of last year’s general election that they would remove actively farmed land from RZLT, but we have yet to see delivery on this commitment by the current Government.

Bill O’Keeffe called on the Minister for Finance Pascal Donohoe and the Minister for Housing James Browne to recognise that the current approach is not the correct instrument to encourage greater delivery of housing. The stated aim of RZLT was to encourage housing development, but the RZLT is doing the exact opposite.

“Affected farmers live in fear of the tax implications of RZLT and its introduction has not increased interest from potential buyers to purchasing zoned land in many cases. Housing developers, AHBs (approved housing bodies) and financial lenders all recognise the RZLT liability associated with purchasing zoned land. They are standing back from purchasing zoned land in many cases, until the many other obstacles that are restricting housing development – finance, pre-planning investigations, labour and materials – are in place.” he said.

IFA and farmers understand the need for more houses, but RZLT is not the instrument that will solve the current deficit. There are many other barriers to the supply of new housing that the Government needs to address. IFA will continue this campaign to have all farmland permanently excluded from the scope of RZLT.

“It is important that farmers are aware that they must act before the Fri, May 23rd deadline and make a return to Revenue to gain the exemption for 2025,” he concluded.