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Another Section 179 Update
It seems that my inbox is blowing up with questions about what Section 179 will be for 2014. Whenever, I indicate that we should know what the final number should be around Christmas or even New Years, I get emails back saying doesn’t Congress know that taxpayers really can’t make informed equipment decisions without knowing […]
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USDA and Partners Complete First-of-Its-Kind Sale of Carbon Credits from Working Ranch Grasslands
With the help of a grant from USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, a carbon credit system for private landowners in North Dakota was created who agree to avoid tillage of grasslands. Grasslands store carbon dioxide which are one of the leading greenhouse gases contributing to climate change according to the USDA. Using this new carbon credit system, […]
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Direct Deposit Limits
In an effort to combat fraud and identity theft, new IRS procedures effective January 2015 will limit the number of refunds electronically deposited into a single financial account or pre-paid debit card to three. The fourth and subsequent refunds automatically will convert to a paper refund check and be mailed to the taxpayer. While this […]
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Succession Planning…. Start Early
I had the pleasure of speaking at the Tri-State Grain Growers Convention (WA, OR and ID) this past Friday on a panel about family farm succession where I was able to share the perspective of a CPA. The other panelists were an attorney, a financial advisor, and a family business advisor and we discussed a […]
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Project All Years Before Making ARC/PLC Decision
A difficult choice for producers this year regarding the election between ARC-CO and PLC is for those areas where yields are dramatically higher than the five-year average. In these cases, ARC-CO is likely not to make any payment for the 2014 crop year whereas PLC will make a payment assuming the MYA corn price stays under $3.70. These […]
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Final FUTA Tax Rates by State
The normal FUTA tax rate is 6% on wages up to $7,000, however, if the farmer timely pays their State Unemployment Taxes (and meet certain other rules), they are allowed to take a 5.4% credit to bring the net FUTA tax per employee down to .6% (on $7,000 this equals $42 of FUTA tax). However, for several […]
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Where’s the Beef
Yesterday, I posted on work pork production. Today I will recap world beef production (again from the 2014 Agricultural Symposium). Here are some of the key points: Total beef production has held steady between 56 and 59 million metric tons over the last 10 years (about half of total pork production). US produces about 11 […]
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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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What About Pork?
Every once in a while, I like to post of interesting facts about food production around the world. I came across the 2014 Kansas City Federal Reserve Agricultural Symposium that was held this summer and found a presentation by Derrell Peel, a professor at Oklahoma State University. Here is a recap of some interesting facts […]
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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 […]
