Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi will join a dispute in the Bloemfontein High Court over tax on farmland, Free State Agriculture announced on Thursday.
The farmers’ union said the state attorney had notified them that Mufamadi planned to join the case.
Mufamadi was earlier invited to do so because it involved constitutional issues.
Farmer Hendrik Boshoff from Reitz in the eastern Free State has applied for a court order to declare the levying of a 2% municipal tax on his farms as illegal.
Free State Agriculture is funding his application, billing it as a test case for farmers countrywide.
At the announcement on Friday the union’s chief executive, Pieter Moller, said farmers and municipalities countrywide were following the case with great interest. The union was being inundated with enquiries from all over.
Its newly established fund to cover the legal costs was holding contributions of almost R200 000. They still needed to increase this.
Spokesperson Borrie Erasmus said they were receiving reports of several other municipalities that had started taking steps for the introduction of a tax on farmland.
In several districts the valuation of agricultural properties, as required for such a tax to be levied, had already started, Erasmus said.
A date for the court hearing still has to be set.
A lawyer for Boshoff said on Friday he hoped this would be at the start of December.
Although the Constitution empowers a municipality to tax all property within its jurisdiction, only a very small percentage of the country’s farmland is being taxed.
Organised agriculture’s stance is that farmers will refuse to pay such a tax before the proposed new Property Tax Act is accepted by Parliament. This was essential to set coordinated national guidelines, they say.
The 19th version of the proposed act is now being revised.
Studies requested by Parliament on the expected impact of the new act are still being done. — Sapa