trouble

Tax charged to fertilizer bought before invasion

Heather Wright the independent

Long before Vladimir Putin’s first tank rolled into Ukraine, Kevin Marriott bought fertilizer for his Lambton County farm. The grain farmer bought 40 metric tonnes of a fertilizer containing Nitrogen and Phosphoric Acid for a total of $41,400 in November and paid the bill in December. Then, he got bill number two dated May 26. Although he had bought and paid for the fertilizer long before Russia invaded Ukraine prompting the federal government to put a tariff on fertilizer coming from Russia, Marriott now owed the federal government $6,967.99 in tariff fees.

Marriott says the federal government imposed the fee “because it hadn’t hit the dock yet. Apparently, what they’re going by is when it arrives.”

That $7,000 bill for the Russian tariff is only half of his fertilizer bill. Factor in that the cost of fertilizer tripled this year and that diesel fuel has skyrocketed; “All of a sudden the good (grain) prices are not going to mean anything. We might be behind the eight ball with all the added costs all of a sudden.”

Marriott is not alone in paying the fee even though the war had not begun when the purchase was bought and paid for.

SEE TARIFF PG 3