An initial list of regions could be made available soon, a spokesperson said
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Livestock producers hoping for the federal government to provide tax relief in 2022 may be in luck.
Following a Farms.com report of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) calling for Ottawa to invoke the Livestock Tax Deferral Program, Farms.com contacted Minister Bibeau’s office to find out where that process stands.
A spokesperson from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada responded to Farms.com’s request with the following statement:
“The Government of Canada provides support through the Livestock Tax Deferral, which allows livestock producers to defer their tax paid from the sale of breeding livestock when facing drought conditions. Regions are prescribed for the deferral when forage yields are less than 50 per cent of the long-term average, and the area affected is large enough to have an impact on the industry.
“Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada officials are working closely with provincial forage experts across Canada to evaluate the impacts of droughts and to ensure that designations under the Livestock Tax Deferral provision accurately reflect local growing conditions.
“We understand that a timely announcement of those regions is important for the industry and we anticipate that an initial list of regions meeting the criteria for the Livestock Tax Deferral will be made available in the coming weeks.”
Prescribed regions are designated on the advice of the minister of agriculture to the minister of finance.
The federal government has invoked the livestock tax deferral every year since 2017.