Farm Leadership
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$2 Cotton Can Lead to Bankrupt Farmers!
Now that cotton is rapidly approaching $2 a pound or corn is over $7 a bushel, many people feel that farmers now have it made and the good times will always be here. What I have seen in my career is that almost the exact opposite may happen. Many farmers (or other business people) get […]
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Are You Ready for the Super Bowl of Farming?
After watching the Super Bowl last night (and I must admit I was rooting for the Packers), I reflected on how our farmers may want to check their operations and management to see if they would be ready to play in the Super Bowl of Farming. As a manager of your farm operation are you: […]
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Remember That Returns Revert Back to the Mean
The first presentation at the Top Producer seminar today was done by Sterling Liddel, a vice president of economics at Rabo AgriFinance. The slide that stood out to me the most was the long-term mean price for corn over the last 80 or so years. For about the 40 years before the Russia price shocks […]
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Tomorrow’s Top Producer
I am in Chicago this week attending both the Top Producer conference and yesterday I attended the Tomorrow’s Top Producer and also gave a brief talk on income tax changes for 2011. There appears to be about 100 of tomorrow’s best farmers attending the conference and at lunch time, my wife and I were talking […]
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Those Pesky Form 1099s
We had a reader send in the following question: “I really got my-self confused by reading to much. I need some clarification on the new upcoming requirement on filing 1099’s. I know that it goes into effect for tax years after 12-31-2011. Where I am confused is CCH say it is for amounts paid after […]
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Home Energy Credits on Existing Homes Only!
We had a reader ask the following question: “My wife and I built a new home in 2010. We moved in on June 24,2010. Can we take the residential energy credit for insulation, windows, & doors on form 5695 for this house on our 2010 tax return? Thanks, Dave” I am afraid that we […]
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Farmer’s Health Insurance Reduces SE Tax!
We had a reader ask the following question: “Is it true that for 2010 we can reduce our net self-employed income on Schedule SE line 3, by deducting the amount of our self-employed health insurance from line 29 of Form 1040? My husband and I farm side by side so will only his half of […]
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You Can Pick & Choose on Bonus Depreciation!
We had a reader ask the following question: “I’m thinking of putting up a farm shop and storage building this year (2011). Can I take the bonus depreciation on only half of the cost of the building and depreciate the remaining amount over the 20 year period?” Now based on my heading, you are probably […]
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Machine Sheds Qualify for Bonus Depreciation
We seem to be getting quite a few questions regarding what farm buildings qualify for the 100% bonus deprecation for 2011 (and the period after September 8, 2010). Our latest question is as follows: “Is there any bonus depreciation on machine sheds in the year 2011?” For any new farm building placed in service during […]
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TEPAP – Final Conclusions
I spent all of last week attending the TEPAP conference in Austin, Texas. This intensive 7 day conference is put on by Professor Danny Klinefelter of Texas A & M University. Each day’s session would normally have two different topics covered by some of the best presenters in the farm business. I would highly recommend […]