Farm Industry Trends
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Top Producer Conference
Yesterday I attended the Tomorrow Top Producer conference in Chicago. The main Top Producer gets started today and runs through Friday. Some of the observations from yesterday are: Younger producers are very worried about the availability of land to farm. With cash rents rapidly increasing and land prices exploding, they worry about their ability to […]
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AMT Causes a Few More Capital Gains Tax Rates!
We had a reader send in the following question: “Do long term capital gains count in determining AMT? And thus potentially increasing 15(20) percent effective rate?” We wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about there being ten different long-term capital gains tax rates beginning in 2013. Well, we can probably at least two […]
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Why Imputed Interest Matters For 2013 (And Beyond)
Any time a farmer loans money to a corporation that they own (or vice versus), the income tax laws require these loans to bear interest. If the loans do not bear interest, then the law requires the farmer to calculate an “imputed” interest amount based upon the applicable federal rates published by the IRS each […]
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It May Pay to Fill Out Your Ag Census Online
Every five years the Department of Agriculture sends out a very detailed census form for farmers to prepare and send back. We have already discussed this form with several farmers and as usual it can be very hard to follow the paper form. We have found preparing the form online can save some time and […]
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Are Taxes Progressive in the US?
Every once in a while we read an article on either how progressive or non-progressive our tax system is in the US. We ran across this article while browsing the Internet and the first thing that struck me is how the word progressive is denoted in these articles as being equal to percentage. In the article, […]
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KC Fed Reports Drought-Reduced Income Boost Farm Loans
The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank just released their third quarter Agricultural Credit Conditions report. The report indicated that the drought caused lower farm income for the quarter which caused farmers to increase their farm operating loans. Capital spending plummeted in the quarter. This could have been caused by the drought or perhaps the lower […]
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IRS Announces April 15 Farmer Deadline
The IRS announced today in Issue Number IR-2013-7 today that due to the extended processing time for many tax forms including form 4562 (Depreciation), that the deadline for any farmer and fisherman has been extended April 15, 2013 from March 1, 2013. To take advantage of the extended due date, the farmer will file out […]
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Watch Out For Those Retroactive State Tax Gotchas!
We just read an article in the Xconomy website on a drastic retroactive law change specific to the state of California that will possibly impact many taxpayers. Federal law has a rule under Section 1202 that allows you to deduct a certain percentage of your gain from investing in Qualified Small Businesses (QSB). We won’t […]
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Senator Grassley Wants Extension of March 1 Filing Deadline
Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa released a letter yesterday to both Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury and Steven Miller, Acting Commissioner of the IRS urging prompt attention by the IRS to extend the March 1, 2013 filing deadline. As many farmers know, they can file and pay by March 1 without having to make […]
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IRS Announces Needed Relief on Home Office Deduction!
Many farmers and other small business owners operate their business out of their home. The tax laws allow a deduction for part of the expenses related to the home such as insurance, utilities and repairs based upon the square footage of the business portion to the total home size. For example, if the farmer uses […]