Tax treatment of basic and single farm payment entitlements

22.12.2017

Question for written answer E-007947-17
to the Commission
Rule 130
Maria Lidia Senra Rodríguez (GUE/NGL)

The Commission and the Spain view single farm payment entitlements and basic payment entitlements as intangible assets. However, one body of opinion holds that they are a credit claim against the EU in the form of a recurring, transferable payment.

Basic and single payment entitlements were, and are, a scheme that compensates farmers for falls in agricultural prices and they should not be tradeable separately from farms themselves. The way in which entitlements are distributed should depend not on a farmer’s economic means but rather on fair distribution criteria set by the EU.

The commercialisation of these payments (which are being bought, sold and even rented) has led to cases in which the Spanish National Tax Authority has demanded a supplementary payment from couples married under a shared assets regime to cover perceived rises in assets subject to personal income tax as a result of a transfer of ownership of a family farm from one spouse to the other.

1. Does the Commission think that this commercialisation of payment entitlements is helping family farms to survive?

2. If direct payments ‘currently shore up the resilience of 7 million farms’, why are they treated as intangible assets and not as an annual subsidy?