Farm Leadership
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Sheldon, Iowa is Cold
David Repp and I are teaching day 2 of the ISU-CALT Farm and Urban Tax School in Sheldon, Iowa today. I also did this same class last year at the same time and although today’s temperature is about 18 degrees, last year is the temperature was even lower at about 4 degrees. I thought I would update […]
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DOL Plays Hardball (Don’t Shoot the Messenger)!
The Department of Labor released last week an updated Q & A related to the reimbursement of health insurance premiums by employers and the use of Section 105 plans to possibly get around these restrictions. Although I am including the link, I will actually show the three Q & A from the DOL so there […]
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A Christmas Present?!
Now that the mid-term elections have resulted in a landslide for Republicans (who have two years to not mess it up), we turn to the lame-duck congressional session that will occur between now and the end of the year. In the session two years ago, Congress extended many “extenders” including keeping Section 179 at $500,000 […]
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Make sure to fairly compensate piece-rate employees
A recent settlement in Washington state has one farm potentially paying an out-of-court settlement amount that will approximate $850,000 for back pay and legal fees. You can find a full detail of the story here. The lawsuit discussed in the article alleges the berry farm failed to pay workers for all the time they spent […]
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Final Harvest Prices
The University of Illinois today posted on their FarmDoc Daily analysis on the final harvest price for corn and soybeans. The spring projected price for corn was $4.62 and the final harvest price was $3.49 which is about 24% lower. This means if you elected 85% RP crop insurance coverage, you will have a crop […]
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IRS Announces Various Inflation Adjusted Items
Last night I rode in the combine in Northeastern Iowa from about 7 pm to about 2:30 am. We cut about 10,000 bushels of corn with a John Deere S680 and I must admit there is something therapeutic about seeing corn come into the combine and then get dumped into the grain cart. I look […]
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How ARC-IC Pays on “Planted Acres”
We got the following question from a reader: “I enjoyed your article regarding ARC-IC calculations. I’m wondering if you could further explain how ARC-IC is paid on planted acres vs. base acres. Everything that I have read states that ARC-CO & ARC-IC are paid on 85% and 65% of Base Acres and that planted acres […]
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IRS Disagrees With Morehouse Ruling (Of Course)
The IRS released on October 16, 2014 a new bulletin on their website (in the small business section) regarding the taxation of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) payments. Although the release was dated after the Morehouse appeal case which was released on October 10, 2014, the IRS has not changed their stance regarding the taxation of […]
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2015 Social Security Wage Base Increases to $118,500
FICA tax of 6.2% for employer and employee applies on wages and SE earnings up to $117,000 for 2014. The Social Security Administration (SSA) just announced that for 2015, the new wage base will be $118,500 or an increase of $1,500. This means, that for 2015, the maximum Social Security tax that employers and employees will […]
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ARC-IC Calculations Apply to All Elected Farms in the State
Most producers who elect ARC will do at the County level (ARC-CO). However, many producers with yields substantially in excess of county levels will elect ARC at the Individual Crop level (ARC-IC). All of these elections are on a farm-by-farm basis and on a covered crop-by-covered crop basis except ARC-IC which requires all covered crops […]