October, 2012
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Fiscal Cliff Example # 2
We had several readers respond to our post yesterday asking for a couple more examples for a more “typical” situation. The seminar included other examples. One example was a married couple with three children and “normal” itemized deductions with the husband earning $100,000. In this example, the gross income tax owed for 2011 was $7,779. […]
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What the Fiscal Cliff Means To You?
As part of our normal tax planning updates at our firm, we had a two hour presentation on how the Fiscal Cliff may affect some of our taxpayers. As many of you know by now, on January 1, 2013 the Bush and Obama related lower tax rates are scheduled to expire along with many other […]
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Updated 2013 Estate and Gift Tax Inflation Adjustments
The IRS recently released Revenue Procedure 2012-41 that outlined all of the inflation adjusted items contained in the tax laws. There were a couple of provisions related to gift and estate taxes that apply to farmers. Beginning in 2013, you can now give up to $14,000 any individual(s) during the year and not have to […]
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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 […]