Farm Leadership
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How Does County Yield Affect ARC-CO Payment
FarmDoc Daily issued a report yesterday on the amount of estimated payments for ARC-CO and PLC by covered crop for the 2014 crop year based upon the updated USDA price information from last week. It gives you a good idea of the types of payments for each crop based upon the low, medium or high USDA […]
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Senate Passes Tax Extender Bill 76-16
It is now final (other than the President signing it which he will). This gives farmers about two weeks to make purchases of equipment to take full advantage of Section 179, bonus depreciation and other business tax extenders. I just finished the last tax school in Ames, Iowa today. Over 300 in attendance with another […]
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Wednesday Optimistic – Thursday Pessimistic
The Hill is reporting that progress was made by the Senate yesterday in getting several nominees confirmed. These confirmations do take time and the estimated day of final passage of the Tax Extender Bill is either late Wednesday or sometime on Thursday. “Senators will vote to end debate and confirm Sarah Saldaña, Obama’s nominee to […]
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Tax Extender Bill Could Pass Today
The Hill (a site that tracks Congress and the President) is reporting that Senator Reid is trying to get the Senate to finish all of their remaining work today and go home for the holidays. However, there is always at least one Senator that likes to gum up the works. The Senate will begin voting […]
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Does Budget Bill Fiasco Spell Doom of Tax Extender Bill
Based on the experience with the House yesterday in passing the 2015 Budget Bill, it would not surprise me if Congress now punts the Tax Extender Bill completely to 2015. I still firmly believe that there is enough votes in the Senate to get the bill passed, however, based on certain stubborn Senators on both the […]
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IRS Announces 2015 Standard Mileage Rates
The IRS has announced the 2015 standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical and moving purposes. The 2015 rates are: 57.5 cents per mile for business miles driven, up from 56 cents in 2014. 22 cents of this amount is considered depreciation for basis reduction […]
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Watch Your Crop Insurance Form 1099s This Year
As we have previously noted several times, there will be lots of crop insurance claims paid out this year. A form 1099 will be issued by the crop insurance company for these claims. The form 1099 will report the gross amount of crop insurance “paid” to the farmer, however, in many cases, this will not […]
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Are We Getting Section 179 Fatigue?
We should know by Wednesday whether Section 179 will be $500,000 for 2014 (I have guaranteed this at several seminars over the last week or so, but you know how much my guarantee is worth). Assuming it does get increased to that amount for this year, I am starting to wonder if many of our […]
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Senate to Vote on Tax Extenders on Wednesday?
It appears that the Senate will vote on the Tax Extenders Bill on Wednesday of this week. Procedural matters will tie them up on Monday and Tuesday, thus the earliest the vote will take place is on Wednesday. It is expected that enough Democrats will vote with Republicans to pass the Bill and it appears […]
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Ethanol Industry Approaches 1 Million Barrels a Day Production
The Barrel is a blog done by Platts (a division of McGraw Hill) and their recent post indicated that Ethanol production is approaching 1 million barrels a day. This equates to about 42 million gallons a day. Ethanol margins have nearly doubled from 2013 and are approaching $1 per gallon. However, with the continued decrease […]