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AICPA Ag Conference
I was the chairperson for the 2014 AICPA Ag Conference held in Austin, Texas last week. One of the slogans that we constantly saw walking around Austin was “Keep Austin Weird” and I can tell you there are certainly some “weird” people walking around downtown Austin. We had about 200 people attend the conference and […]
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STAX-Cotton Stacked Income Protection Plan
We have done numerous posts on the new ARC and PLC programs, however, cotton producers are not eligible to participate in either of these programs, so we thought it would be helpful to update cotton producers on the new program available to them. First, 2014 is a transition year for cotton producers. For 2014, they […]
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Payments to Veterinarians Require 1099 (Even If Incorporated)!
Most farmers are used to preparing form 1099s in January of each year for any unincorporated businesses that provide services to them during the year. Once those total payments exceed $600, the farmer is required to issue a form 1099-MISC. If the business providing the services is incorporated, then a form 1099 is normally not […]
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100 Million Not 10 Million
In my last post, I referenced a sample dairy farmer taking advantage of the Dairy Margin Dashboard put out by the University of Illinois. Since my eyes have gotten a little older, I missed the fact that my input was based on 100 million pounds, not 10 million pounds. Everything else is correct, other than […]
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Nice Dairy Margin Management Dashboard
The University of Illinois issues a daily “farmdoc” and today’s release was a nice dashboard for dairy farmers to determine how much margin protection they could have received if the margin protection program had been around since 2000. The dairy farmer can plug in their elected coverage levels; the amount of protection they want (from $4 […]
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Updated Average Marketing Prices 2013/14
The USDA releases updated prices on almost all major (and many minor) commodity crops at the end of each month. The latest report was released today. Since ARC will be based upon the average price received by farmers for their crop for the marketing year, we can take these monthly reports and obtain an average price […]
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Partial Taxpayer Victory on Horse Farm Case
In the Merrill C. Roberts cased just released by the Tax Court today, the taxpayer ended up with a partial victory in another horse farm case. Mr. Roberts, started a restaurant in 1969, had it burn down in several months after opening, and then used the insurance proceeds to open a bar in 1972. The […]
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Trusts, Capital Gains and the Net Investment Income Tax
As has been previously discussed in several posts, the highest tax rate for 2013 was raised from 35% to 39.5% and the highest capital gains tax was also raised from 15% to 20%. Obamacare also implemented a new complicated 3.8% surtax on net investment income in excess of certain thresholds. The thresholds are as follows […]
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House Ways & Means Committee Votes to Make $500,000 Section 179 Permanent!
The House Ways and Means Committee approved today six tax extenders including making Section 179 permanent at the $500,000 level. There are an additional 50 or so extenders that this committee will review and vote on. It is good news that the committee voted on Section 179 at this level, however, this is just at […]
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ARC Versus PLC – 2014-2018
We have gotten several questions regarding which program is better – ARC or PLC. There is no one right answer to this question since there are so many unknown variables. However, I decided to run out the numbers for corn, soybeans and wheat assuming certain crop marketing prices for each year. For corn, I elected […]
