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180 Months Means 180 Months!
The US Tax Court on Monday, October 21, 2013 released another Case that I found interesting. In Estate of Helen Trombetta vs. Commissioner, the Tax Court essentially ruled creating a grantor trust with retained interests having a term of 180 months, you better make sure you live for at least 181 months if you want to save […]
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Is Your Contract Labor Really Wages?!
I came across an article in Accounting Today recently discussing states clamping down on misclassified employees (Independent Contractors v. Employers). While this article focuses on the construction industry, it certainly applies to the agriculture industry as well. Basically, what the employer v. independent contractor boils down to is who is required to pay employment / […]
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Taxpayers Want Their Cake, Frosting and Candles!
In a Tax Court case issued on Monday, October 21 (Van Alen and Tomlinson vs. Commissioner), we find taxpayers who inherited farmland property subject to a Special Use Valuation adjustment under Section 2032A. This adjustment allows an estate to elect to reduce the value of the land from its “true” fair market value downwards to […]
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IRS Releases List of Counties Eligible for Another Year of Livestock Deferral
Each year the IRS releases a list of those counties affected by drought in the US. This list is used by ranchers to determine if they have an additional year to defer the gain from selling excess livestock due to drought. Section 1033 allows ranchers a four-year period to reinvest proceeds from the sale of […]
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Watch Out for Distributions from Coops
While recently working with a client, I came across a situation I typically do not deal with on a routine basis: non-qualified patronage distributions from a cooperative. A qualified distribution is treated as a deduction on the cooperative return and the producer picks up the income amount. On the contrary, the cooperative does not get […]
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2012 Tax Season Officially Bites the Dust
Most farmers are used to a March 1 tax filing deadline. However, for many other farmers and other taxpayers, the final individual tax deadline is not April 15 but rather October 15. And like many of us from our school days, there are certain taxpayers that like to procrastinate (and procrastinate and so on). As usual, […]
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Watch our for FBAR
A new very nasty four letter word is FBAR which stands for Foreign Bank Account Report. In a recent court case that is outlined at the Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation (CALT), a taxpayer lost a case with the IRS regarding an assessment of penalties under the FBAR program that were determined during a regular […]
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Is 2013 The Last Year to Deduct Sales Tax
Under current law, 2013 is the last year that individual taxpayers will be allowed to deduct sales and use tax on their individual tax return as an itemized deduction. Sales taxes were allowed to be deducted until tax reform was initiated in 1986. The deduction was eliminated for many years (although state income taxes continue […]
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For Our CPA Readers
The AICPA is presenting an Agriculture Conference next May in Austin, Texas. Here is a link to sign up for the conference. I am one of the committee members tasked with designing and putting on the conference and I believe that whether you have a tax or assurance background, there is something there for everyone with […]
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Mother Nature Intervenes
I had hope to ride on both a new Case IH 9230 and a JD S680. Well, Mother Nature had other ideas with a fair amount of rain on Saturday which nixed the Case IH 9230. I did get to sit in the cab which is nicer than a lot of high end cars with […]
