Farm Leadership
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Day 1 of the FFSC
As I indicated in my last post, this week I am attending the annual conference of the Farm Financial Standards Council. I got into Sioux Falls this afternoon. We had a reception get together tonight and I was able to meet many of the participants. There about 45 attendees and most of them were there […]
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Farm Financial Standards Council Annual Conference
I will be leaving bright and early Tuesday morning to attend the annual conference of the Farm Financial Standards Council (FFSC) in Sioux Falls, SD. The FFSC is comprised of bankers, CPA’s, farmers, and other ag leaders who are promoting standardized financial accounting for ag producers. This will be my first time for attending the conference. […]
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How Does Section 1231 Work?
We had a reader ask the following question: “I’m thinking about selling a tract of timber on land that was gifted to me 7 years ago. What can I expect the tax consequences to be? I’m a self-employed farmer.” We have done a couple of posts lately on capital gains treatment of the sale of […]
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What Is The Tax Rate On Gifted Equipment?
We had a reader ask the following question(s): “Paul, in regard to the capital gain question-we are in the process of purchasing a new corn planter. If we sell the old one for cash, how much will the capital gains tax be on it? 15% or normal income tax rate? It was gifted to us […]
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Estimate Your Monthly Social Security Benefit
The Social Security Administration has a nice retirement calculator on their website that will project what your monthly social security benefit will be if you retire at: Normal retirement age (for most of us this will be somewhere between age 66 and 67), Age 70, and Age 62 The calculator takes into account your current […]
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Dying Days of Ethanol Subsidies?
The Wall Street Journal in today’s paper had a good article on how ethanol subsidies are even closer to being eliminated. Under the proposed deficit-reduction plan proposed on Thursday, the 45 cents a gallon blenders credit would be eliminated, however, more than $600 million of aid would be given to service stations to help promote […]
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Mexico to End Tariffs on Fruit and Other Ag Products
There is an old saying that when politics gets involved, farming can suffer. One of the prime examples of this was issue of allowing Mexican truckers to bring products into the US by truck which was allowed for several years. However, politics got involved a few years ago and the US stopped this and Mexico […]
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Extra Year for “Prairie Pothole States”
The USDA announced on Thursday, June 30, 2011 that the “Prairie Pothole States” of Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa will have one extra year to use in their prevented planting insurance coverage. Normally, the prevented planting coverage insurance requires one crop in the last three years. In these states, for many farmers, […]
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What’s Your RLU?
A farm enterprise must be able to generate enough revenue and net income to support at least one farm family which I call a “living unit”. A farm operation should calculate how much revenue the farm generates each year and divide that both by the number of full-time equivalent employees (FTE) and “living units”. To […]
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IRS Raises Mileage Deduction by About 8%
Effective July 1, 2011, the allowed mileage deduction and reimbursement rate is increased from 51 cents per mile to 55.5 cents. Don’t ask me why the IRS uses half cents for these rates, but they do. This means you can use 51 cents for your miles incurred by June 30 and the new rate after […]