The future

6600 said:
Registered Irish business buys cattle from non-registered farmers. Claims the 5.4% back on his vat return. Exports same cattle. No vat on exports. But if he sold them in Ireland he'd have to pay the 4.8% on his sales. All legal but in some cases the same cattle can cross the border several times in their life. When you see so many feed lots around the border you would wonder. There's an organised crime element to this as well.
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The VAT will have to be paid if imported from the North into the south again though. Understand on the single direction movements
 
Ozzy Scott said:
The VAT will have to be paid if imported from the North into the south again though. Understand on the single direction movements
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Why? It works the same the other way. NI registered business sells them back. No vat on their exports either.
 
Should say that there is 0% on meat so it makes sense to buy them here, kill them in another jurisdiction and buy the meat back. The Irish registered dealer is the piggy in the middle claiming the 5.4
 
Kieran97 said:
True, in relation to what comes from the UK its negligible. Probably lads dreaming as you say.



With Ash at least you'll have a few thinnings and the timber is worth more. But I agree, more an investment for the next generation.

With dieback, they give a grant to cover the cost of thinning the diseased trees and the idea is the stronger ones should be ok.

As you say though, more an investment for the next generation. The premium for hardwoods is generally a good bit better.

I did some rough calculations on It before. Allowing for the first thinning in year 15, and the premiums stay much the same with 2% annual inflation, you could buy the land for 3400 an acre, plant, and between premiums and the value of the thinning have your investment returned by year 15.

Then you're up whatever the residual value of the forest is.
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Not forgetting the re-establishment cost after clearfell.
 
6600 said:
Registered Irish business buys cattle from non-registered farmers. Claims the 5.4% back on his vat return. Exports same cattle. No vat on exports. But if he sold them in Ireland he'd have to pay the 4.8% on his sales. All legal but in some cases the same cattle can cross the border several times in their life. When you see so many feed lots around the border you would wonder. There's an organised crime element to this as well.
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I didn’t think a registered feedlot could export cattle, maybe I’m wrong.

Any of the big feedlot up this direction are selling their cattle to factories in the 26 counties.
Some are vat registered some are not.
 
Arthur said:
Not forgetting the re-establishment cost after clearfell.
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Payback would have been achieved before the clear fell had happened.

I'd imagine the cost of reestablishment has to be lower then the value of the end product of the clearfell?
 
ithastopay said:
I didn’t think a registered feedlot could export cattle, maybe I’m wrong.

Any of the big feedlot up this direction are selling their cattle to factories in the 26 counties.
Some are vat registered some are not.
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Why would it suit a feedlot to be vat registered?
 
6600 said:
If all their sales were exports it would.
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I was discussing this with a farmer this evening and he says the cheque s for his cattle are from across the border in the North of Ireland even though the cattle are killed in the South. He says it is something that has only started in the last few years.
 
https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/armagh-farmer-and-wife-jailed-for-vat-fraud/
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/gardai-smash-29-million-vat-18864675

Say the same person has cattle dealing companies in both NI and ROI. Buy the cattle in one, claim the flat rate addition and sell them your company on the other side of the border with no vat. That's all legal as the transaction actually happened, but I would argue that they are profiting when they are buying direct from unregistered farmers as the farmer didn't charge them an extra 5.4% on his cattle or calves. They claim the 5.4% as that is what the farmer would get if he sold them in the mart/factory. If someone buys calves or heifers out of your yard you don't realise he can claim some of it back from the Revenue.
What was probably happening in the above cases which is illegal is that the invoices and money was being transferred between companies but the cattle movement records didn't back up the paper trail. Or maybe they did but the cattle were going round and round (that's why it's called carousel fraud) with the sole intention of claiming the VAT. Imagine how big business this was around the time of the beef tribunal when there were subsidies to be claimed as well as vat!
I'm sure it's not just cattle this happens with. It would explain some of the Quinn stuff that was happening as well.
 
ithastopay said:
@6600
What’s your definition of a feedlot?
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You're getting hung up on feedlots, this could be going on from someone in an office that never sees the cattle.

The feedlots clustered around the border with common ownership would be handy for accommodating the cattle on their merry way though.
 
6600 said:
You're getting hung up on feedlots, this could be going on from someone in an office that never sees the cattle.

The feedlots clustered around the border with common ownership would be handy for accommodating the cattle on their merry way though.
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Would the cattle even have to move? Surely just a paper exercise could be carried out to show sales? The vat claim could be done 6 months after the date that they were supposed to move. Could they be sold north and bought back by the herd number down the road on the same day and in reality only physically move to your wife's or business partner's herd?
 
muckymanor said:
Would the cattle even have to move? Surely just a paper exercise could be carried out to show sales? The vat claim could be done 6 months after the date that they were supposed to move. Could they be sold north and bought back by the herd number down the road on the same day and in reality only physically move to your wife's or business partner's herd?
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Who can say. A lot of it is completely legal and it's usually only the cases connected to organised crime that are prosecuted. It's a big enough issue for the EU to have written to the Dept. of Finance to ask them to shut down. There's no sign of them taking any action so far, I know for a fact that the Revenue only need the go ahead to go after this. They EU reckon this type of carry on costs €160 billion across the EU. It will be interesting to see what happens when the UK are outside of the trading bloc. Michael Gove proposed abolishing VAT altogether and replacing it with a simple sales tax like what they have in the US.
 
6600 said:
You're getting hung up on feedlots, this could be going on from someone in an office that never sees the cattle.

The feedlots clustered around the border with common ownership would be handy for accommodating the cattle on their merry way though.
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@6600, your a well known, well informed poster on here, contributing well on many topics, your posts and opinions on here are valued and respected by many members, myself included and indeed some who may read this forum but not be members.
With that comes some responsibility, imo.

For the benefit of those who don’t know what a feedlot status herd is in Ireland and why some farmers choose to go down the feedlot status route,
for me as someone involved in a feedlot herd.
Id be grateful if you could explain a bit more about the working of feedlot herds, reading some of these post about feedlots involved in vat fraud.
It appears to me, that by association and lack of explanation, other feedlots could be tarred with the same brush.

When Feedlots have been discussed on here in the past, there’s been some negativity shown towards them, mainly through ignorance, some believing them to be factory owned or factory controlled.
That’s utter bollix, I believe there are only a handful of feedlot herds owned by factories
(many would argue, as to whether or not, they should be allowed to have them at all)

The vast majority of the feedlot herds are owned and ran by full time farmers, some of them finishing a 100 or 200 cattle, others finishing 1000’s of cattle off grass and from indoor feeding annually.

It’s a well known fact that finishing cattle is low margin business, nobody will argue that point.
Feedlot farms can only sell cattle to a factory, that’s the downside, the upside is fewer TB tests, and the ability to buy all the time.

Without feedlot herds there’d be fewer buyers around the rings, TB restrictions would ensure that.
Also feedlot herds can buy direct from TB restricted herds, that’s a bonus for a farmer who’s restricted by TB, who may be over stocked, tight on feeding or under funded, carrying younger/store cattle that are not suitable to go to the factory, needing to sell, but can’t go through the marts.

There are members on here who have a feedlot herd.
There are several feedlots up around here, family farms, buying and selling cattle, I know many of them and how they operate, as usual I won’t be discussing someone else’s business on here.

In answer to why a feedlot status herd might be vat registered, take a farmer who is farming tillage and beefing cattle, if the tillage side of his business is larger than the beef side, it may make more sense to be vat registered, particularly so, if the farmer is operating a short keep system, where the gross margin between buying and selling is low.
 
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Blue Power said:
If I was to be milking cows in 10/15 years time I would plan to have the following set up:

300+cows, milked in a rotary parlour, all replacement stock contracted reared i.e leave at 2 weeks old and return 4 weeks prior to calving, all major farm duties i.e silage slurry winter feeding ( especially during the calving season) contracted out, minimum number of expensive machinery in the yard.
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How old are you now?

The biggest problem with milking a decent amount of cows is staff reliance,just finding someone to attach clusters for 2 hours is hard enough.
 
The future, it looks bleak tbh.
What I'd like? Build back up to 120 cows, 2 lely robots, in an open floor shed with sand bedded pack and slatted tank to feed off.
All the heifers billed with Angus, top 40% of cows sexed semen to fleckvieh, rest to charolais.
Finish the beef beef cattle.
Try to take enough land to grow enough barley to feed the milkers 50% of the concentrates in barley. Buy in soya and beer pulp.

What I can see happening? 10% of our land forced into forestry, fertilizer use severely restricted and ending up with poor production due to reduced yield and protein in the grass crop. Pretty much wealth from our lands redistributed to Africa and Asia though carbon credit offset projects. Reduction in subsidies to agriculture. Regulated out of being able to compete with cheaper labour land and resources from Africa and Asia.
I just see these schemes we are in to attain subsidies as more disadvantageous than advantageous but I can't see others thinking the same.
 
I think the long term future is bright.

I know it's a pain in the hole right now, but that stuff that's making your ground into shite right now. that's in scarce enough supply.

I'm not sure when, but at some point in the large parts of america are going start to heavily restrict and ultimately to ban crop irrigation and I imagine many other countries will have to do similar.

Houston is estimated to have sank around 10 feet due to groudwater depletion. the water table has dropped 400 feet. northern illinois is estimated to have lowered the water table by 800 feet.

California is one of the most agriculturally productive places on earth, yet it supposed to be mostly desert.

Saudi arabia has already begun restricting the use of water for irrigation.

When these countries start to reduce the levels of irrigation they can afford, then the price of food will rise and those of us that have an abundance of water will be in high demand.

I'm just not sure when that's gonna happen.
 
ithastopay said:
@6600, your a well known, well informed poster on here, contributing well on many topics, your posts and opinions on here are valued and respected by many members, myself included and indeed some who may read this forum but not be members.
With that comes some responsibility, imo.

For the benefit of those who don’t know what a feedlot status herd is in Ireland and why some farmers choose to go down the feedlot status route,
for me as someone involved in a feedlot herd.
Id be grateful if you could explain a bit more about the working of feedlot herds, reading some of these post about feedlots involved in vat fraud.
It appears to me, that by association and lack of explanation, other feedlots could be tarred with the same brush.

When Feedlots have been discussed on here in the past, there’s been some negativity shown towards them, mainly through ignorance, some believing them to be factory owned or factory controlled.
That’s utter bollix, I believe there are only a handful of feedlot herds owned by factories
(many would argue, as to whether or not, they should be allowed to have them at all)

The vast majority of the feedlot herds are owned and ran by full time farmers, some of them finishing a 100 or 200 cattle, others finishing 1000’s of cattle off grass and from indoor feeding annually.

It’s a well known fact that finishing cattle is low margin business, nobody will argue that point.
Feedlot farms can only sell cattle to a factory, that’s the downside, the upside is fewer TB tests, and the ability to buy all the time.

Without feedlot herds there’d be fewer buyers around the rings, TB restrictions would ensure that.
Also feedlot herds can buy direct from TB restricted herds, that’s a bonus for a farmer who’s restricted by TB, who may be over stocked, tight on feeding or under funded, carrying younger/store cattle that are not suitable to go to the factory, needing to sell, but can’t go through the marts.

There are members on here who have a feedlot herd.
There are several feedlots up around here, family farms, buying and selling cattle, I know many of them and how they operate, as usual I won’t be discussing someone else’s business on here.

In answer to why a feedlot status herd might be vat registered, take a farmer who is farming tillage and beefing cattle, if the tillage side of his business is larger than the beef side, it may make more sense to be vat registered, particularly so, if the farmer is operating a short keep system, where the gross margin between buying and selling is low.
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I never said it was feedlots
ithastopay said:
@6600, your a well known, well informed poster on here, contributing well on many topics, your posts and opinions on here are valued and respected by many members, myself included and indeed some who may read this forum but not be members.
With that comes some responsibility, imo.

For the benefit of those who don’t know what a feedlot status herd is in Ireland and why some farmers choose to go down the feedlot status route,
for me as someone involved in a feedlot herd.
Id be grateful if you could explain a bit more about the working of feedlot herds, reading some of these post about feedlots involved in vat fraud.
It appears to me, that by association and lack of explanation, other feedlots could be tarred with the same brush.

When Feedlots have been discussed on here in the past, there’s been some negativity shown towards them, mainly through ignorance, some believing them to be factory owned or factory controlled.
That’s utter bollix, I believe there are only a handful of feedlot herds owned by factories
(many would argue, as to whether or not, they should be allowed to have them at all)

The vast majority of the feedlot herds are owned and ran by full time farmers, some of them finishing a 100 or 200 cattle, others finishing 1000’s of cattle off grass and from indoor feeding annually.

It’s a well known fact that finishing cattle is low margin business, nobody will argue that point.
Feedlot farms can only sell cattle to a factory, that’s the downside, the upside is fewer TB tests, and the ability to buy all the time.

Without feedlot herds there’d be fewer buyers around the rings, TB restrictions would ensure that.
Also feedlot herds can buy direct from TB restricted herds, that’s a bonus for a farmer who’s restricted by TB, who may be over stocked, tight on feeding or under funded, carrying younger/store cattle that are not suitable to go to the factory, needing to sell, but can’t go through the marts.

There are members on here who have a feedlot herd.
There are several feedlots up around here, family farms, buying and selling cattle, I know many of them and how they operate, as usual I won’t be discussing someone else’s business on here.

In answer to why a feedlot status herd might be vat registered, take a farmer who is farming tillage and beefing cattle, if the tillage side of his business is larger than the beef side, it may make more sense to be vat registered, particularly so, if the farmer is operating a short keep system, where the gross margin between buying and selling is low.
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The carousel VAT fraud has been going on for years, it's nothing to do with whether a trader has feedlot status or not. The problem is constantly being highlighted by Revenue and the EU commission. It's not just an Irish issue, it happens in every country with land borders with another EU country. It's not confined to farming either.
There are livestock traders operating in Ireland whose only margin is the VAT credit they impute on the purchase of livestock directly from non-VAT registered farmers. Revenue could go after these as there is a fraud aspect to in some cases where cattle are only exported on paper but their hands are being tied by the inaction of the Department of Finance. That is my point.
 
i,ve been locked up with TB several times and sold my cattle to a farmer feedlot and was very glad to be able to do it for cashflow and stocking reasons, i didn,t get the same price as i would have got in the mart but the feedlot will get no compensation if one my cattle went down in his herd so he has to allow for that
 
Feedlots don't have to have TB tests as far as I am aware so don't understand your point above re one of your cattle going down in his herd.
 
Nashty said:
Feedlots don't have to have TB tests as far as I am aware so don't understand your point above re one of your cattle going down in his herd.
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I was in the feedlot scheme for years, out for the last year, we had to have one TB test every 12 months. What he means is if he has a reactor in his test he gets no compensation. I have a suspicion it's gone to 2 tests in 12 months but someone in the scheme will know better.
 
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