Farm Industry Trends
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Farm Bill Webinar
This morning at 10 am Central Time we had an one hour webinar on the new farm bill. We had several hundred people accessing the webinar and based upon the amount of questions that came over the screen as I was discussing the farm bill, this appears to be a very hot topic right now. Since there […]
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Patronage Dividend Notices Can Be Sent by Email or Posted to a Website
The IRS recently issued a private letter ruling (PLR 201413002) allowing a cooperative to provide notice by email or a posting to their website instead of mailing all notices by regular mail. In order for Cooperatives to get a deduction for their patronage dividends, they must provide written notice by a certain date each year. With postage […]
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Very Limited Availability for AICPA Ag Conference
This post is primarily for our CPA readers out there. I was just informed yesterday that there is extremely limited availability for the AICPA Ag Conference that will be held in Austin on May 7 to May 9. If you are interested in attending, here is the link on the AICPA site to sign up. […]
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Leave a Legacy (#44)
I had the privilege about two weeks ago to make a quick trip to the Kansas City area to do taping for Leave a Legacy. Leave a Legacy is a Farm Journal Media presentation focused on succession planning for farmers and is headed by Kevin Spafford. About three years ago, I had taped an inside episode […]
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Taxpayer Victory in Frank Aragona Trust Case
The US Tax Court released today their long anticipated decision in the Frank Aragona Trust case. The background on the case is as follows: The Frank Aragona Trust was formed by Frank Aragona during his lifetime and after his death, the trustees of the trust were his five children plus an independent trustee. Three of the children […]
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Painful Form 8879 Process is on its Way
Almost all of our tax returns that we prepare for farmers are now being electronically filed with the IRS and related state taxing authorities. The form that we need from the client in order to electronically file the return is Form 8879. This form must be signed by an appropriate person for entities and then […]
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One More Reason Why Tax Reform is Going After Cash Method
The IRS issues data regarding income tax information for filers every year. I ran across a posting on the net farm income and loss reported by Schedule F farmers for 2011 and 2012. During each of these years, the USDA estimated that farmers had net farm income in excess of $120 billion. However, on schedule […]
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FSA Releases New Farm Bill Fact Sheet
The FSA released today a six page fact sheet on the new farm bill. It recaps the major changes that were included in the 900+ page farm bill. Most of the material has been covered on several of our posts over the last month or so. We are doing a webinar on the new farm bill […]
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Cash Rents Equals Extra 3.8% on Sale
We had a reader ask the following question: “Can you give some advice on the impact of retiring from active farming and cash renting the farm as it relates to the 3.8% tax on capital gains. Given a large increase in the land value while actively farming, do you give up the exemption from the […]
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Real Estate Includes Land but Not For Depreciation Purposes
We had a reader send in the following comments and question: “I appreciated your information on the tax reform proposal. In your 4th bullet point on depreciation, you stated that “Most if almost all farm real estate…would be over 40 years and not the current 10 or 20 years.” It has been my understanding that […]