If you are a dairy farm owner and own Fonterra shares, it’s likely you received a payment on the 18th August separate to your monthly milk payment. This payment is a capital return of 50 cents per share to shareholders, and relates to Fonterra’s sale of the Soprole plant.
This payment is not considered to be income (and is therefore non-taxable) and does not have GST included on the transaction. If you complete your own GST return, please ensure you are recording it as a Fonterra share transaction, and not as milk income. If you have any queries on how to treat this, please don’t hesitate to touch base with one of our team.

We appreciate that farmers are going through challenging times financially at present, with the recent announcement of the reduced dairy payout and sheep and beef prices not meeting potential. This combined with rising on farm costs and the marked increase in interest rates has created considerable cashflow pressures. Please do not hesitate to make contact with one of our Agri-business accounting team to assist you with your cashflow forecast to ensure you have the right banking facilities in place to get through this period of time.