Farm Industry Trends
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What’s New on the Form 1120 for 2012
For those farmers who have corporations for their farm operations, there are several changes to the form 1120 for this year. These changes are as follows: Merchant card and third-party payments. For the 2011 tax year, the IRS has deferred the requirement to separately report on the corporation’s tax return the amount of merchant card […]
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Is This a Different Farm Boom?!
I think the Kansas City Federal Reserve is one of my favorite sites to get good farm information. In a recent issue of the Main Street Economist Agricultural and Rural Analysis, they had an article entitled “Is This Farm Boom Different?” The article recapped the two primary farm booms of the 20th century. In the […]
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The Billion Dollar Counties
Every five years the USDA performs an agricultural census of the farms in the US. The last census was performed in 2007 with this year being the next census. We have already seen some of the census forms received by our farm clients. We were curious how many counties in the US had more than $1 billion […]
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More Farm Export Facts
Following up on my post from yesterday, here are some more interesting farm export facts. Total 2011 agricultural exports are expected to $137 billion. This is an all time high with 2008 in second place at $115 billion. An interesting note is that farm imports were $93 billion which is primarily comprised of fruits, vegetables […]
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All Time Low Interest Rates!
The IRS just issued Revenue Ruling 2012-2 which lists the Applicable Federal Rates for January, 2012. These are the minimum interest rates that you must charge on related party loans such as a loan from a parent to a child or a shareholder to their corporation. For short-term loans, this interest rate is only .19%. […]
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Is it 15, 16, 17 or even 18?
One of the hardest things to keep track of as a CPA who prepares income taxes is “What is the due date of your tax return, income tax estimates and other due date?”. Normally these due dates fall on the 15th of a month. However, if the 15th is a Saturday, Sunday or federal holiday, […]
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Crop Insurances Proceeds – Update
An alert reader let me know that one of my points on how to defer your crop insurance proceeds was not written as well as it could have been. In my original post, I had indicated that each crop is a “separate” business unit, then each crop is looked at separately. This separate business unit […]
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When Do I Report My Crop Insurance Proceeds?
We had a reader ask the following question: “I was flooded on one farm & hailed on another so received multi-peril income this year. How much of our MPCI can be deferred?” Without knowing all the facts here, we can give general advice on how much crop insurance proceeds can be deferred from one year […]
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Payroll Tax Cut Extended For Two Months – Sortof!
President Obama signed late yesterday a new law extending the payroll tax cut for the first two months of 2012. This means for January and February 2012, the employee’s portion of the FICA tax will be 4.2% instead of the normal 6.2%. For self-employed farmers, for net SE farm income up to $18,350 shall be […]
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For Building to Qualify for 100% Bonus Depreciation It Must Be Complete in 2011
We had a reader ask the following question: “I put a deposit on a building in Nov 2011 thinking that it would completed and paid for by 12/31/11. The builder has not started the building yet and says it will most likely be completed mid January. What can i do to get the 100% cost […]