August, 2011
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Hillside Combining Part 2
We had a reader in Washington state suggest that we try to explain how steep some of these hills are that we harvest in this area. Unless you have been on a combine harvesting a steep hill, it is hard to explain just how steep these hills are. I know that as a child with […]
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Harvesting Good Wheat on Steep Hills
I spent Friday afternoon and all day Saturday harvesting wheat for my cousins near Dixie, Washington. Dixie is the town I grew up in until we moved to the big city of Walla Walla when I was in high school. The fields we were harvesting on were about a mile away from the old homestead. […]
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Will the IRS want your Accounting Software File?!!!
In a recent Florida Federal District Court Case, the IRS was granted the right to summon the accounting software file of a small business. This case did not involve a farm, however, the IRS has gotten very aggressive in demanding the actual accounting software file, especially Quickbooks and other common software accounting programs. Before the […]
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The Dates for 100% Bonus Depreciation
We had a reader ask the following question: “What is the date a farm building has to be built to be 100% tax deductible? Is this for one year (2011) or will it continue for more than the single year?” We have done a couple other posts on this earlier this year and late last […]
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Corn Price is Now Higher Than Wheat!
Historically, wheat prices have generally been higher than corn prices and sometimes the difference can be major. In many years, wheat could be $1 or $2 higher than corn. This is due to two main reasons: Corn was primarily used for feed Wheat was more heavily used for bread and other products directly consumed as […]
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Motorcycle Trip Along the Minnesota River
On Saturday, I met up with a couple of my partners in the CPA firm in New Ulm, Minnesota to ride motorcycles. We left about 9:30 in the morning and drove out of town up onto a nice flat area with very good looking crops. We then dropped back down into the Minnesota River Vally […]
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Changes to Minnesota Estate Tax Law
With the final completion of the Minnesota shutdown being resolved last month, some nice although somewhat complex changes to the estate tax law were made to help farmers. The federal tax law has a provision for farmers called special use valuation that allows a reduction in farmland value of up to about $1 million on an estate tax return. The […]
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FFSC – Day 2 (Session Six)
Phyllis Parks, a CPA with Daughhetee & Parks Management Consulting gave a presentation on understanding our competition south of the Equator. Phyllis had taken a trip to South America in December. The state income tax rate is 18%. The employer rate for social security is 27% and the employee pays about 3%. Brazil seems to […]
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FFSC – Day Two (Session Five)
On purpose, I skipped talking about session four since it was my discussion on income taxes which we have posted on many times already. Session Five was presented by Tim Ohlde, President of Elk State Bank in Clyde, KS on the applications of the FFSC guidelines to Today’s Ag Lending World. He stated that what […]
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FFSC – Day Two (Session Three)
Dr. Barry Dunn, Dean of AG/BIO, South Dakota State University in Brookings, SD gave a presentation on the untapped power of information systems in decision making. Dr. Dunn shared several humorous examples of data overload. He indicated the most powerful tool that he has seen for agriculture is the use of management dashboards for farmers. […]