Farm Industry Trends
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Walla Walla Spring Time
My mother was born in Hay, Washington in the early 1920s. She was the only girl in her senior class and the two other boys were related to her. During college, her family moved to Walla Walla, Washington to farm which is where I grew up (actually Dixie which is about 10 miles away). Walla Walla is […]
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Where are the Large Farms?
As we have previously mentioned, the 2012 US AG Census was just released and there are many interesting facts contained in the census. One area that I will highlight today is the trends regarding large farms. These farms contain more than 2,000 acres. As can be expected Texas has the most large farms with 10,810. […]
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Know Your Deferred Tax Liability!
Over the last couple of months I have seen some farm operations that based upon the fair market value financial statements provided appear to have net worth, however, when you factor in the amount of deferred taxes that would be owed if all of the inventories, equipment and receivables were liquidated, the farming operation would […]
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FBAR Filing Deadline is Near
The Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts Report (FBAR) form, formerly TD 90-22.1 now known as FinCEN Form 114 must be electronically filed by June 30th. As it is not required that this form be filed at the time of filing an individual tax return, this form can be easily overlooked. This form must be filed […]
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Corn Belt and Cash Rents Cropland Values Level Off
The Chicago Federal Reserve releases a quarterly update on cropland values and cash rents for their district which comprises the three main “I” states in the corn belt (Iowa, Illinois and Indiana) and although good Iowa farm land was up 1% for the quarter, good farmland in Illinois and Indiana dropped 4% in the latest […]
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Portability Revisited
With the “permanent” changes in the estate tax laws from about 2 years ago, we now have a permanent provision called portability. This allows for the unused portion of someone’s estate to be “ported” over to the surviving spouse to be used on their final estate tax return. Example: John Bean passes away worth $1 […]
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Kansas Land Values-Analysis of Four Year Trends
Kansas State University has a great resource for farmers and others interested in farming, not just in that state. On Friday, Dr. Mykel Taylor presented a webinar on the trends in Kansas Farm Values over the last four years. The Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service (KAS) reports annual farmland prices, but only on a statewide basis. As most […]
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USDA to Award $6 Million for Farm Bill Help
The USDA announced yesterday that they will be awarding $ 6 million to help farmers analyze their farm bill options primarily related to ARC and PLC. There will also be tools to analyze the options for dairy producers under the new Dairy Margin Protection Program that should start September of this year and the Noninsured Crop Disaster […]
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Where are all the Chickens?
Following up on a few of our previous posts on cattle and hog numbers from the 2012 AG census, we now will review chickens. As you might guess, we count cattle and hogs in the millions, but we count chickens in the billions. As of 2012, there were about 8.5 billion chickens marketed for the […]
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Does Warren Buffett Practice What He Preaches?
President Obama sometimes refers to the Buffett Surtax when promoting a new budget or tax law changes. This surtax refers to the famous Omaha investor (Warren Buffet) who talks about volunteering his willingness to pay a higher income tax rate than the current law provides for. However, much of Warren’s wealth is not current income […]