December, 2012
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Revocable Living Trusts – Do They Save Estate Taxes?
Nick Houle, one of our Estate Planning partners in our Minneapolis office, gave an one hour presentation on estate tax planning at the South Dakota Soybean Association annual meeting in Sioux Falls, SD yesterday. I attended the event with Nick and talked to many farmers about succession and estate planning. One of the questions that […]
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Some Interesting Ag Cooperative Facts
The USDA issues a bi-monthly newsletter on the Farm Cooperative industry and the latest issue had some interesting facts: Minnesota has the highest number of coops (a distinction held since 1900) with 203. Texas is second with 187 followed by North Dakota and California. These numbers are based upon the number of Coops with headquarters […]
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How Much Would A Gas Tax Raise?
We hear about the President’s proposal to raise $1.4-1.6 trillion in new taxes over a ten year period. That is a lot of money, however, what if we raised the gas tax. How much revenue would that raise over the same 10 year period. Right now we consume around 135 billion gallons of gasoline in […]
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File Your Gift Tax Return
I am in Chicago for a Firm Tax Partner meeting today and tomorrow and then head to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for the annual South Dakota Soybean Association meeting. One of my partners is speaking at this meeting on estate taxes and we have a booth at the show. If there are any readers that […]
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Watch Your Timing On Year-End Gifts
We know that there will be a lot of large one-time gifts made in the next three weeks. However, there will also be many smaller gifts that are under the $13,000 annual exclusion amount. Care must be made with these gifts at year-end to ensure that they are 2012 gifts, not 2013 gifts. Make sure […]
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Will There Be An “Agriculture Abyss”?
The Economist Magazine based in England writes several good articles a year on items related to farming. They just recently posted an article dealing with the farm bill making its way through Congress. Most farmers know that the Farm Bill has technically expired as of September 30, 2012, but many probably do not know that we […]
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How to Calculate The New 3.8% Medicare Surtax
One of our readers asked the following question: “Could you possibly give some examples on this new Medicare surtax might be calculated? Thank you.” The new Medicare surtax applies on the lessor of: Net investment income, or The amount of adjusted gross income in excess of $250,000 ($200,000 single) Investment income comprises primarily interest, dividends, annuities, […]
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IRS Wants All Rents Subject to new 3.8% Medicare Tax
As we posted yesterday, the IRS issued proposed Regulations on Friday November 30, 2012 on how to implement the new Medicare 3.8% surtax that takes effect on January 1, 2013. In brief, if your income is greater than $250,000 ($200k single), then all of your investment income, including cash and crop share rents, may become subject […]
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IRS Issues Proposed Regs on 3.8% Medicare Surtax
The IRS issued proposed Regulations on the 3.8% Medicare Surtax imposed on investment income. Tony Nitti, a columnist for Forbes Magazine has a very good initial take on these proposed regulations. I would suggest reading the column to get a good idea of the major issues involved, but I am going to recap the major […]
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Senator Baucus Urges Extension of Current Estate Tax Laws
The current lifetime estate exemption is $5.12 million (indexed with inflation). This lifetime exemption is scheduled to be reduced to $1 million with a top rate of 55% on January 1, 2013. President Obama has proposed to reduce the exemption to $3.5 million with a top rate of 45%. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus […]