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Senate Finance Committee to Markup Tax Extenders Bill This Week
The Senate Finance Committee will hold a meeting this week to markup legislation that will extend dozens of expired tax provisions likely for all of 2015 AND 2016. Included in the bill of special interest to farmers is the following: Section 179 would remain at $500,000 for 2015 and 2016 reverting back to $25,000 in […]
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CHS will not issue Non-Qualified patronage, will issue DPAD
In a recent news release, the CHS Board of Directors has announced that the company will not issue non-qualified equity to eligible member-owners as part of its patronage distribution for fiscal year ended August 31, 2015. Also, because of this, CHS will pass through to eligible owners the unused portion of the company’s IRS Section […]
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Not Filing a Information Return is Getting More Expense
Late last month Congress passed the Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015 to continue the fast track of trade negotiations (TPA, etc.). However, to pay for part of the Act’s provisions, the Act increased the penalties for not filing information returns (Form 1099) and the increase can be substantial in the case of multiple non-filed […]
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Updated PLC Yields Much Higher Than Old Yields
One of the options available to landowners under the 2014 Farm Bill was to update their yield to 90% of the average yield from 2008 to 2012. A producer could retain the old CCP yield which in many cases had not been updated since the 1980s or update to the new yield. Producers who elected […]
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Senate Finance Committee Releases Tax Reform Reports
The Senate Finance Committee just released four reports on possible tax reforms yesterday. The reports were on the following aspects of tax reform: The Business Income Report The Community Development and Infrastructure Report The Individual Tax Report The Savings and Investment Report In today’s post, I will recap some of my findings from the first […]
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It’s Official – No PLC Payments for Wheat, Barley and Oats!
Wheat, Barley and Oats have a marketing year that ends May 31. The USDA released the final 2014/15 MYA prices for each crop as follows: Wheat – $5.99 Barley – $5.30 Oats – $3.20 In all cases, the MYA price for each crop exceeded the reference price called for in the 2014 Farm Bill. These references […]
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One Last Summer Seminar
The Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation has one last summer seminar later this month in Lake Tahoe. I helped present at the Findley Lake, New York and Spearfish, South Dakota seminars and will be tied up with the Farm Financial Standards Council annual meeting. Taking my place will be Chris Hesse from our National […]
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How Liquid Are Our Farmers?
I was browsing the latest publication from the Kansas City Federal Reserve on the Farm Economy. Nathan Kauffman released a report on June 25, 2015 titled “Today’s Corn Prices, Yields Look Like 2009”. Although the gist of the article detailed how corn prices and yields for 2015 look very similar to 2009 (at least […]
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It Pays to Follow the Rules
The US Tax Court released a full opinion yesterday in the Webber v. Commissioner case that shows how important it is to follow the rules. In 1999, Mr. Webber created a grantor Alaska Trust (Alaska has no income tax) to purchase two private placement insurance policies for about $700,000. Private placement insurance allows a taxpayer […]
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Largest Decrease in Cash Rents Since 1987
I was reading the latest Ag Letter from the Chicago Federal Reserve and noticed an interesting tidbit on cash rents. The first part of the letter addressed farmland values being relatively flat to slightly negative for the first quarter of 2015. A chart on page 2 showed the annual percentage change in cash rents for […]
