TAU SA leadership recently met a DA delegation of leader Helen Zille, former agriculture minister Kraai van Niekerk, Maans Nel and former Bothaville farmer Andries Botha, to discuss matters affecting agriculture, especially the new land tax. TAU feels the has some clout at municipal level.
TAU general manager Bennie van Zyl called the meeting “very fruitful”, and said the day after the meeting Zille had already indicated she was working on their grievances. Van Zyl said farmers face escalating input costs and new taxes while having to comply with increasingly demanding legislation, and that urgent intervention is needed with the new land tax’s implementation. “People now realise the percentage levied will have to be very small to avoid large-scale bankruptcy of farmers,” he said. report drafted by land officials and leaked to Farmer’s Weekly in October last year, proposed “the design and implementation of a land tax regime to facilitate the release of land into the public domain for land and agrarian reform purposes”. – Jasper Raats
