Farm Operations
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Another Tax Season Bites The Dust
For most farmers, their tax season usually ends on March 1 of each tax year since that is when they usually file their income tax returns. However, for the rest of us, our normal due date is April 15, but many of our clients get an extension until October 15. These clients are usually our […]
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Combining 265 bushel corn
We have had great late summer/early fall weather here in the Northwest. Cool mornings with highs in the low to mid 80s for the last couple of weeks. On Tuesday, I visited one my clients that was harvesting corn just north of Pasco, Washington. They had just finished up a 50 acre field that had […]
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Crop Revenue Would Need To Drop 21.4% to Equal 1980 Income Shock
The Kansas City Federal Reserve just issued a paper on the Nebraska economy and I found a couple of the pages in the paper interesting. First, to equal a 1980s income shock, current farm revenue would need to drop by 21.4% and the value of total farm production would need to decrease by 15.7%. Now 21.7% […]
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2012 Interest Rates for Special Use Valuation
The IRS today posted Revenue Ruling 2012-26 which lists the applicable interest rates (go to page 3 of release for the actual ruling) available if an estate elects Special Use Valuation in valuing farmland. Special Use Valuation allows an estate comprised primarily of farmland (or other qualified business property) to elect to value the farmland […]
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Involve Your Kids With Year-End Tax Planning
Many multi-generation farms have the parents totally immersed in the finances of the operation while the children may be more focused on the actual farm production activities. Since this is a time of year (right after harvest) to do your year-end tax planning, try to get the kids more involved this year in the actual […]
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Does Ridge Till Net More
I was browsing the soybean net income statistics reported by the University of Minnesota for the 2011 crop year. There were 1,372 farms reporting soybean statistics for 2011 and 680 used some type of chisel or reduced tillage (635 gave no answer on tillage practice). These farmers reported an average of $147 return over direct […]
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Videos of Wheat Harvest
Just some short clips of wheat harvest near Dixie, Washington (about 12 miles east of Walla Walla, Washington) on Saturday, August 11, 2012. Short clip of harvesting wheat Short clip of grain cart coming up the hill with Dixie/Walla Walla in the background Longer clip of dumping wheat in the grain cart All of these […]
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FFSC – Day 2 Session 2
Our second session was presented by Ron Homann with 1st Farm Credit Services on how to use the ratios and standards. A first level loan may not require a balance sheet or income statements. If the “score” is high enough then a loan of up to $250k or $500k operating loan may be granted. Their […]
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FFSC – Day 2 Session 1
Our first session today was presented by Economics Professor Kevin Waspi of the University of Illinois. He presented a discussion on the Economic and Financial Outlook and some highlights are: Our economic policy is based on the the policyI used in the late 1990’s to help get Japan out of their lost decade. Everybody knows […]
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Ethanol Makers are Getting Squeezed
The Wall Street Journal issued a report today on how Midwest Ethanol makers are getting squeezed by the rapid increase in corn prices (to read the article, you may need a subscription). Production earlier in the year was running at about 950 million barrels per day. The current run rate is about 800 million barrels […]