Opportunity Party’s land value tax would mean only a minority of owners face a higher bill, says deputy leader and agriculture spokesperson Daniel Eb.

The party, formerly known as TOP, has set the farmland rate at 0.05%, one thirty-fifth of the 1.75% applied to residential land.

“If you’re a farming couple, you’ll only see a tax increase if your farm is over $7 million in value,” he says.

“If you are a farming couple with an adult child who’s working on the farm, it’s closer to 10 million.”

The tax is calculated on land value only. Houses, roads, fencing, and stock are all excluded, as is privately owned conservation land.

“Your shelter belts, your QE2 blocks, any sort of niggly bits that a couple of years ago you’ve just fenced off and put into natives, all of that gets taken off your tax bill.”

He says the exemption is intended to pay farmers through the tax system for moving to nature-positive land use.

“For the last two decades, farmers have been told by the New Zealand public, ‘Change your landscapes, plant trees, do all this good stuff.’ But no one’s ever put the cash up to front for that transition.”

The policy is paired with a citizens’ income of $370 a week paid to almost all New Zealand adults. Eb says 70% of New Zealanders would see a tax cut under the combined policy, 20% no change, and only 10% a tax increase.

He says high land prices produce returns too low to justify the debt required to enter farming.

“There’s a reason that it’s really, really hard to get young farmers into business, into farming.

“Most old farmers are telling their kids not to do it because it’s not profitable and it’s not financially viable.”

He says average sheep and beef returns run at about 2% to 4%, and dairy at about 5%.

“What this road looks like in the long term is a whole lot of family farms having to sell out to the only people with the coin to buy them, which is corporations.”

If in coalition, the party’s priority would be starting a transition pathway rather than resetting tax settings in full.

“We are not prepared to keep kicking the tax can down the road because future generations of New Zealanders, young farmers included, need us to start making real hard decisions now.”

CountryWide CONNECT with Andy Thompson & Sarah Perriam-Lampp is our daily rural show livestreamed from 11am-1pm. Visit country-wide.co.nz on how to watch/listen or download the CountryWide CONNECT mobile app, available on Apple iOS and Android.