Moldovan farmers speak out against land tax raise

Chisinau, 16 March /MOLDPRES/-More agricultural producers were complaining about a possible increase of 15 per cent in the land tax and a 20-per-cent tax for the procurement of spare parts.

The chairman of the National Farmers Federation, Valeriu Cosarciuc, during a news conference today said “these increases provided in the draft of the fiscal policy for 2016 were unacceptable, given the fact that solely the drought inflicted six-billion-lei losses on farmers”.

According to Cosarciuc, Moldova’s economy was hurt by several factors in 2015, and namely, by Russia’s ban on exports, economic recession, the one-billion bank scam and the banking crisis.

“We carried out an agricultural package in 2015, asking for a zero share agricultural tax, agricultural loan guarantee fund and also for drafting a special law on the petroleum products market. Unfortunately, the parliament did not adopt the agricultural package. The fact that Moldova lacks a law on waters is another problem. Farmers spend thousands of lei to get a license allowing them to use certain waters for irrigation,” Cosarciuc added.   

According to the head of the UniAgroProtect Union of Agricultural Producers’ Associations, Alexandru Slusari, the increase in the land tax is the main problem now.

“The Finance Ministry wants to raise the land tax from 1.50 lei to 1.73 lei per hectare. It is not the right moment for it. The year of 2015 was a shock to the Moldovan agriculture. Prices for agricultural products shrank by 20 per cent in January 2016, against the prices in autumn 2015. Therefore, we ask the parliament to avoid increasing fiscal pressure over farmers,” Slusari said.

Representatives of farmers’ organizations and agricultural producers have also requested that the agricultural subsidy fund be raised to 1.5 billion lei. They added that the state owes farmers compensations for 2015, accounting for almost 500 million lei.

(Reporter N. Roibu, Editor L. Alcaza)