Farm Leadership
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2012 Taxable Farm Profits (Are Still Negative)
The USDA Economic Research Service just released a nice chart showing the total reported taxable farm income and farm losses from 1998 to 2012. Over the 15 year period, the net tax farm income number was never positive, however the trend from 2007 to 2012 increased every year. Farmers, in total, reported gross profits from […]
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Watch Out for Employment Tax Fraud
One of the easiest ways for someone to commit fraud is to prepare employment tax returns for farmers and handle the remittance of the funds to the IRS and appropriate state authorities. What will happen is the farmer transmits the funds to the third-party preparer assuming that person will then remit the funds onto the […]
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Has Anything Changed?
Tomorrow is the last day to sign up for ARC/PLC under the new Farm Bill. We have not heard any rumblings about another extension, but if there will be one, it will likely be announced today. Grain prices have not been extremely volatile over the last few months, so it is extremely likely that nothing […]
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PLC Payments for Wheat and Soybeans Highly Unlikely for 2014
Art Barnaby of Kansas State University prepares a monthly update of where he estimates the MYA price will be on corn, soybeans, wheat and sorghum. KSU just released yesterday an updated report based on price information just released on that day. Wheat would need to have an average price of lower than $2.70 for the […]
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FSA Extends Deadline (But Only a Week)
As expected (but not necessarily hoped for), the FSA announced today an extension of one week to sign up for ARC or PLC. Instead of March 31, the new deadline is now April 7. The FSA essentially did the same thing with the Dairy Margin Program with an one week extension, so this was not […]
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1,400 Joint Operations to Lose $50 million of Program Payments?
The FSA just issued proposed Regulations yesterday regarding the active involvement of non-family members in a farm operation. The Farm Bill had required FSA to come up with these new rules within six months of the passage of the bill. And as usual, they are late. These new rules do not apply to a farm […]
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Tax Court Allows $11 Million Horse Loss to Stand
The US Tax Court in the Metz case released yesterday allowed taxpayers who had claimed over $11 million of losses related to a horse farm to stand. As we have previously discussed, the Tax Court reviews 9 tests in any case with possible hobby ramifications. If the “business” is deemed to be a hobby, then […]
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Where Do They Get These Numbers?
The Washington Post had an editorial on Sunday blasting the Farm Bill for being more costly than the old farm bill in some cases. However, in my opinion, their view is very slanted toward just this year and clearly reflects wrong numbers in their analysis. They indicate that many corn farmers in Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota […]
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Don’t Forget Those Generic Acres
I was on the Farm Journal Farm Bill webinar yesterday and one of the subjects I covered was the cotton generic acres. Because of the WTO rulings, the new farm bill does not have a cotton program (other than a special crop insurance STAX program). However, for those farmers with old cotton base, they are not allowed […]
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IRS Provides Guidance on Repair Regulations
I am not sure if I have seen more angst from tax preparers over the last year (other than Obama Care) than on the new Repairs Regulations that came out over a year ago. Many preparers assumed that wholesale Form 3115s were needed to accompany all of taxpayers tax returns for the 2014 tax filing […]