Farm Leadership
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Should You Switch Your LIBOR Debt?
With the Euro Zone upheaval in the financial markets, farmers may want to consider changing any LIBOR based debt that they currently have or anticipate having in the future. Almost all loans these days are based upon some type of index. The most common ones are the Prime Rate, LIBOR and some type of US […]
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Happy Thanksgiving!
With Thanksgiving coming up in a couple of days, I wanted to take the time to say what I am thankful for: My wife of 29 years, Patty Neiffer, for putting up with me for all of these years and for some reason still in love with me. My four sons, Garrett – 24, Grant […]
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Sustainability Test – Part 3
Today’s post is our last part of the sustainability test. Although this is designed for all businesses, most of all of these items apply to farms too. If a key manager or administrator suddenly became incapacitated, someone other than the owner/CEO could assume his or her duties within a week. Have you done a good […]
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Sustainability Test – Part 2
We continue our sustainability test from yesterday. Our company can withstand the financial impact of a “bad” job or lower than anticipated revenue and still comfortably absorb overhead expenses. Do you stress test your budget each year to see what your break-even point is? Have you locked in enough revenues to cover overhead costs including […]
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Sustainability Test – Part 1
A reader gave me a 10 part questionaire regarding how sustainable your business is. This questionaire applies as much to farming as to any other business. During this week, I will list the questions here with my comments. If you can get a true response on at least 7 questions, I would say your farm […]
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Watch Out for Sales to Related Parties – Part Two!
On the last post regarding sales between related parties, my example was not 100% correct, so I have updated the post to more accurately reflect what the rules for related party sales. Thanks to the reader that pointed this out.
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How The Sale of a Part Interest in a Tractor is Handled?
We had a reader ask the following question: “I am slowly turning my farm operation over to my son. Each year I rent to him more of my farmland and he buys more of my equipment. I purchased a tractor in 2008 for $159,000 on which I took Sect. 179 of $137,000 on it. Can […]
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IRS Relaeases New Inflation Adjusted Tax Related items
Revenue Procedure 2011-52 was recently released. This revenue procedure outlines most if not all of the inflation adjusted tax items such as the personal exemption amount, standard deduction, etc.. Of items of interest to farmers are as follows: For 2012, the 15% tax bracket ends at $70,700 of taxable income for married filing joint, $35,350 […]
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Evidence of Combine Operation
I have been teased by several readers that there appears to be no evidence that I operated a combine on my farm road trip. Here is a photo of me operating a brand new John Deere Combine on the Hohenberger farmer in Illinois. Now, there is probably no evidence that I performed all combine operations […]
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Day Three of the Farm Trip
Yesterday I spent the day near Independence, Iowa with Chris Barron of Carson and Barrron Farms, Inc. Chris and his team of farmers farm about 7,000 acres along with a custom farming and seed sales business. I will write a later blog on what his team is doing. We spent most of the day moving […]