On Christmas Day, Saskatchewan farmer Arnold Elliott climbed into his attic to retrieve a box of 33-year-old receipts and then sat down to write a letter to politicians.
The 49-year-old mixed farmer from Smiley was angry about reports that the new farm aid package would be less than he figures is needed.
And he was angry because of a letter, distributed at an autumn farm rally, that showed how much tax Canadian governments collect from beer and rye liquor sales after the crops leave the farm as malting barley and rye.
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“Would someone care to lobby our politicians that $80 straight acre payment is not unrealistic, given the fact that government makes all this from taxes and puts very little of it back into agriculture?” he asked in a hand-written letter faxed to the prime minister’s office and a number of MPs on Christmas afternoon.
Elliott included figures that showed in 1965, the year he started farming, he received $1.27 per bushel of No. 2 wheat. Deductions were 7.9 cents.
In 1998, his No. 1 wheat fetched $3.55 per bushel. Deductions were $1.34.
In 1965, a new half-ton Dodge cost $5,165 with taxes. Last year, the price was $31,950.
“I was (peeved) off,” Elliott said Jan. 10. “We had opened our presents Christmas Eve and I had time on my hands so I got out the receipts and wrote the letter. I don’t type so I hope they can all read it.”
A few days later and a few hundred kilometres southeast, Balcarres, Sask., farmer Lloyd Pletz did his income tax. His forms showed a 1998 farm income of $16,000, reduced to $3,000 after depreciation.
Pletz said he figures he will not receive farm aid because it triggers only when farm income is less than 70 percent of the past three-year
average.
In 1997, he lost money. Last year will show a better result.
“I don’t think I will qualify,” he said. The kicker, said Pletz, is that during 1998, he had to sell some equipment to pay bills and still slipped $40,000 into debt – a line of credit and unpaid input bills.
“I think what they should look at is not the income tax numbers but the debt, and I fell behind last year,” he said. “Neighbors sold cattle and equipment to get through the year. That’s what they should be taking into account. Debt isn’t counted.”
Elliott agrees. Bureaucrats and politicians are designing a program that adheres to income tax rules but misses the point about debt and farm costs.
“I doubt I’ll get anything from this but the last thing I need is more debt. We still have debt from the last crisis in 1981.”
