The final count of registrations for new agricultural tractors (over 50hp) in the UK for 2013 was 12,498 units. This represents a decrease of 10.4% on the 2012 level, according to the Agricultural Engineers Association (AEA) in its latest report.

The AEA reported that the average size of tractor sold in 2013 was provisionally put at 150.4hp, which was 1.6% above the preceding year. Accordingly, the total power sold fell 9% to just below 1.9 million hp.

British farmers were provided with enhanced annual investment allowances (AIAs) in 2012, which were introduced for a limited two-year period and expire at the end of 2014.

The benefit of an AIA is to accelerate the timing of the tax relief by providing 100% tax relief for qualifying capital expenditure in the accounting period in which the expenditure is actually incurred.

Annual expenditure above the first £250,000 will attract the usual 18% annual writing down allowance in the first year with the balance going into the pool of allowances for subsequent years.

This compares with the Irish situation where it can take up to eight years to write off a machine’s cost against tax.