Minister planning talks with IRC over tax incentives for sector

By PETER ESILA
AGRICULTURE and Livestock Minister John Simon says he will discuss tax incentives with the Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) to support the sector.
Simon also said there was no policy for price and freight support and had instructed the Department of Agriculture and Livestock (DAL) acting secretary to draft a policy.
“I will discuss with the IRC to see how we can look at tax incentives to support the airline and freighting companies that support the agriculture sector,” he said.
“We talk a lot about this but we need to give them tax incentives.”
He said incentivising tax on freight would benefit farmers allowing them to make more money.
“The economy in the rural areas will also continue to grow, we talk about growing the economy and the country, it is not going to grow unless the poor farmer in the rural area has K100 in his pocket every day.”
Simon said getting rid of unnecessary costs and offsetting some taxes would increase the farmers’ buying power. He said his office would work with Bank South Pacific Group, IRC and a superannuation fund (Nasfund) on ways they could assist farmers in rural areas.
Simon said the department did not have a policy on freight and price support.
“We do not have a policy, I need a policy paper on price support.
“I cannot continue to run to the Government and ask them for price support without a policy paper.”
Simon said the commodity boards had a legal framework to continue the price support and to continue the freight subsidy.
“So when funding comes to us we make sure that the funding goes to them because we do not have a policy in place, because we can’t implement.”