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Social Security Potpourri
In our last post, we had indicated that the option to “File and Suspend” for social security benefits is coming to an end. This post will expand on that a bit. Under the “File and Suspend” method, married couples could have the higher income spouse elect to file for benefits (currently age 66), but then suspend the […]
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File & Suspend Will Be No More
The budget bill that was finalized this week eliminates a strategy for social security recipients called “File and Suspend”. Under this strategy, the high income earner could file for benefits, allow his lower earning spouse to get benefits before full retirement age and then “suspend” their benefits until age 70 to lock in the additional […]
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Does Congress Want to Eliminate Private Crop Insurance?
The “Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015” is winding its way through Congress and may get voted on as early as tomorrow. This appears to be the last piece of legislation that departing Speaker of the House Boehner will be involved in before he makes way for the new Speaker. One of the “gotchas” in the […]
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Nearly $4 Billion of ARC/PLC Payments Being Sent This Week
The USDA just announced that almost $4 billion of ARC/PLC payments will be mailed to producers this week. Nearly half of the producers that signed up for ARC/PLC will receive payments for the 2014 crop year. The majority of the ARC payments will be for corn growers in the upper Midwest (northern Iowa, Nebraska, South […]
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IRS Issues Inflation Adjusted Amounts
Many of the tax rates, exemptions, etc. in the Internal Revenue Code have inflation adjustments built into them. Inflation is calculated from October 1 to September 30 of each year to correspond to the national fiscal year. Once that inflation increase is determined, the IRS will issue updated amounts for all items affected by inflation. […]
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What is a Marginal Tax Bracket
I have a done tax returns for over 30 years now and marginal tax brackets have become very intuitive for me and others who prepare tax returns, but I think we sometimes forget that many farmers and other taxpayers really do not understand how marginal tax brackets work. Essentially, as your income moves higher, your […]
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What about Partnerships?
The ACA mandates an $100 per day per employee penalty for providing non-qualified health insurance to more than one employee. Many of our farm operations operate as S corporations and partnerships. There is specific IRS guidance that allows shareholders and partners to deduct these health insurance premiums for owners and since this guidance did not […]
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Rural Main Street Index Falls Into Negative Numbers
Creighton University publishes a monthly rural main street index designed to give a reading on the overall health of the farm/rural economy. In their most recent release from September, after several years in positive territory (over 50 on a 1-100 index), the index finally fell into a negative reading at 49. Now, this is only […]
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How Much Does Section 179 Cost the Government?
The Congressional Research Service (a department of the Library of Congress) issues many reports regarding various subjects. They just issued a report on Tax Extenders. The report listed each of the tax extender provisions and the cost to the government over a ten-year period (everything is scored over a ten-year period in Congress). I thought I would […]
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How Much Will Working Capital Per Acre Drop This Year?
FarmDoc Daily from the University of Illinois just released an article today on working capital for Illinois farms for 1996-2014 and the trend for 2015. For those of you who do not subscribe to this blog, I would recommend signing up for it. In the post, there is a chart showing the average working capital […]
