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How Much Land Can Still be Used
My wife and I are down in San Jose del Cabo on vacation this week and yesterday we drove from San Jose to Todas Santos on the Pacific Ocean up to La Paz and then back to San Jose on Highway 1. The key thing that I noticed in the drive was the amount of […]
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Is This Farm Boom Different?!
The Kansas City Federal Reserve just released an issue of their Main Street Economist report that summarized their 2012 Agricultural Symposium held in July. We had previously done a quick post on this, but the latest issue does an extremely good job of summarizing the data presented at the Symposium. History does seem to repeat […]
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2013 Social Security Changes
The Social Security Administration just announced the 2013 changes for items related to inflation adjustments. The Cost-of-Living Adjustment for 2013 will be 1.7%. This means that social security recipients will receive a 1.7% raise beginning in January. The wage base that is subject to FICA taxes will increase from $110,100 to $113,700. Therefore, the maximum amount […]
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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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Where Will Harvest Price End Up For Crop Insurance?
The USDA report that came out this morning appeared to have a bullish bias to it. Corn and Beans were up at least 20 cents and wheat was not too far behind. As of today prices, it appears the average corn price for the month of October for the harvest crop pricing is about $7.50 […]
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Is the True US Deficit $76 Trillion Instead of $16 Trillion
Bill Gross is the lead investment manager for PIMCO which is probably the largest Bond Fund company is the US or the world. Every month, he writes an Investment Outlook letter to their investors and this month’s letter was entitled “Damages“. In the letter, he recaps the countries whose deficit is large as a percentage […]
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Will Farmers Have More “Repairs” This Year?
Until about two years ago, farmers could have been in a battle with the IRS concerning whether a repair was really a repair or an asset that needed to be depreciated. Beginning in late 2010 and through 2011, 100% bonus depreciation applied for any new purchase including what might have been classified as a repair […]
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Maintain Flexibility with Deferred Payment Contracts
One of the best tools in our farm tax toolbox is the ability to use deferred payment contracts to achieve our desired level of taxable farm income. These contracts call for the sale of grain in 2012, with payment being received in 2013. Normally, the sale of the grain is taxed when cash is received, however, […]
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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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Does The Fiscal Cliff Really Make Drastic Cuts in Spending?
It seems every time I turn the TV to a national news channel that someone is always talking about how drastic the spending cuts will be if the Fiscal Cliff goes into effect on January 1, 2013. I have always wondered what that reduction in spending would be and I ran across a study from […]
