{"id":396533,"date":"2026-04-13T16:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T16:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/396533\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T16:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T16:56:11","slug":"farmer-loses-e1-5m-green-diesel-tax-battle-with-revenue-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/396533\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmer loses \u20ac1.5m green diesel tax battle with Revenue \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A farmer, haulier and agricultural contractor has lost a \u20ac1.55 million tax battle with the Revenue Commissioners in a dispute over \u201cgreen diesel\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Tax Appeals Commission (TAC)<\/a> upheld an assessment served on the farmer by the Revenue Commissioners<\/a> in 2018 concerning excise duty, income tax and VAT.<\/p>\n

Tax Appeals Commission rulings typically do not name the parties involved. <\/p>\n

The bulk of the assessment concerned a \u20ac1.29 million excise duty bill for green diesel, along with an income tax bill of \u20ac214,663 and aVAT bill of \u20ac54,072 relatingto the green diesel.<\/p>\n

The lower tax green diesel is used mainly for agricultural work and is restricted to off-road purposes.<\/p>\n

The rise in the price of green diesel, which has nearly doubled from \u20ac0.97 per litre in February to \u20ac1.80 in recent weeks, was one of the driving factors in protesters mounting blockades at major ports and oil depots in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Galway and locations across the motorway system in the past week.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Fuel protests: Government to raid exchequer surplus for \u20ac505m support packageOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In the case before the TAC, appeals commissioner, Conor O\u2019Higgins said the excise duty assessment arose from the appellant\u2019s receipt of 3.44 million litres of ultra-low sulphur marked gas oil (MGO), often referred to as green or agricultural diesel.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Higgins found as a material fact in the case that the farmer, haulier and agricultural contractor had paid \u20ac2.47 million for the purchase of the 3.44 million litres of green diesel in 2014 and 2015 from a firm.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Higgins also found as a material fact that the farmer was engaged in 2014 and 2015 in the supply of green diesel to others \u201cpresumably for profit\u201d.<\/p>\n

In his appeal against the Revenue assessment, the farmer stated that he was in no position to pay the \u20ac1.29 million excise duty bill and were the Revenue to seek to enforce such a debt \u201cit would result in the inevitable collapse of his business\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cBack yourself\u201d: Aimee Connolly shares her story of 10 years in business<\/p>\n

In the 10 years since Aimee Connolly founded the viral beauty brand Sculpted by Aimee, it\u2019s become a multi-million euro enterprise with plans to increase its revenues this year by 25 per cent.Today, Ciaran asks about her early days as an entrepreneur, starting the business with \u20ac10,000 in savings, and her tips on leadership, scaling, and plans to enter the lucrative US market.Connolly tells Inside Business that her supply chain – with some products coming from South Korea – have been impacted by delays in freight getting through the Middle East.\u201cI remain optimistic and hope that whatever happens [in the conflict] we\u2019ll be able to pivot\u201d she says.Following the ceasefire between the US and Iran which began on Tuesday, Cliff Taylor of The Irish Times explains the impact of falling oil prices, and the jump in European and Asian stock markets.Produced by Andrew McNair and JJ Vernon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his oral evidence at the TAC hearing, the farmer denied that he had received 3.44 million litres of green diesel.<\/p>\n

The farmer challenged the \u20ac1.2 million excise duty assessment claiming that the sum assessed represented an \u201cabsurd\u201d amount of green diesel for use on a maize farm or for agricultural contracting.<\/p>\n

He also denied that he had made supplies of fuel to other farmers in the area.<\/p>\n

In his findings, O\u2019Higgins found that the absence of any corroboration of the farmer\u2019s bare assertions regarding the level of green diesel that he received in 2014 and 2015 \u201ccauses the Commissioner to doubt his oral evidence on this matter and to find that it lacks credibility\u201d.<\/p>\n

As such, O\u2019Higgins said there was no basis upon which to conclude that the excise duty assessment was in error. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A farmer, haulier and agricultural contractor has lost a \u20ac1.55 million tax battle with the Revenue Commissioners in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,11522,173708,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-396533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-revenue-commissioners","11":"tag-tax-appeals-commission","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}