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Are Taxes Progressive in the US?
Every once in a while we read an article on either how progressive or non-progressive our tax system is in the US. We ran across this article while browsing the Internet and the first thing that struck me is how the word progressive is denoted in these articles as being equal to percentage. In the article, […]
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KC Fed Reports Drought-Reduced Income Boost Farm Loans
The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank just released their third quarter Agricultural Credit Conditions report. The report indicated that the drought caused lower farm income for the quarter which caused farmers to increase their farm operating loans. Capital spending plummeted in the quarter. This could have been caused by the drought or perhaps the lower […]
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IRS Announces April 15 Farmer Deadline
The IRS announced today in Issue Number IR-2013-7 today that due to the extended processing time for many tax forms including form 4562 (Depreciation), that the deadline for any farmer and fisherman has been extended April 15, 2013 from March 1, 2013. To take advantage of the extended due date, the farmer will file out […]
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Watch Out For Those Retroactive State Tax Gotchas!
We just read an article in the Xconomy website on a drastic retroactive law change specific to the state of California that will possibly impact many taxpayers. Federal law has a rule under Section 1202 that allows you to deduct a certain percentage of your gain from investing in Qualified Small Businesses (QSB). We won’t […]
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Senator Grassley Wants Extension of March 1 Filing Deadline
Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa released a letter yesterday to both Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury and Steven Miller, Acting Commissioner of the IRS urging prompt attention by the IRS to extend the March 1, 2013 filing deadline. As many farmers know, they can file and pay by March 1 without having to make […]
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IRS Announces Needed Relief on Home Office Deduction!
Many farmers and other small business owners operate their business out of their home. The tax laws allow a deduction for part of the expenses related to the home such as insurance, utilities and repairs based upon the square footage of the business portion to the total home size. For example, if the farmer uses […]
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We Wonder What the Investment Income Tax Form Will Look Like
Several of our posts have discussed the new 3.8% net investment income (NII) tax created by the 2010 Health Care Acts that will apply starting in 2013. The IRS has issued proposed Regulations on how to calculate this tax and needless to say, these Regulations are long and complex. After reviewing the Regulations, it appears the […]
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Good News – Certain Credits Offset AMT
Part of the ongoing Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) mess over the last several years involved the allowance of certain nonrefundable individual tax credits such as the adoption credit, the child and dependent care credit, the lifetime learning credit and other similar credits to be allowed to reduce AMT. In some years it was allowed whereas in […]
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Section 179 Can Create a Farm Loss (In Certain Cases)
We got the following question from one of our readers: “Is it true you can only deduct Section 179 in the amount of your farm income remaining after other deductions? In other words you can not have a loss because of 179 depreciation? If the Section 179 deduction is more can you carry it over […]
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Don’t Forget The Double Payroll Tax Hit!
Many farmers are aware that the FICA rate for employees (including their employee portion, if self-employed) has gone back to the old 6.2% which is up 2% from the temporary reduced 4.2% rate for 2011 and 2012. This increase applies on wages as paid and will also apply on any self-employment income paid with the […]
