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PREPARING YOUR FARM FOR TAX DOOMSDAY
It has begun. Nervous clients, including farmers and others, have started calling with growing concern about what can only be described as nightmarish changes to federal tax laws. Changes being discussed are a extreme reduction of the current federal estate/gift tax exemption, elimination of step up in basis, elimination of Section 1031 like-kind-exchanges, as well as other drastic changes being proposed by the new administration. Before delving into the subject matter in more detail, people should remember the immortal words of Yogi Berra when he said, “it’s like déjà vu all over again”, and look back on December 31, 2012. When the clock was to strike midnight, we were not going to see Cinderella’s carriage turn back into a pumpkin, but the federal gift and estate tax exemption was to plummet from $5.12 million per person all the way to $1 million per person. Prior to that, taxpayers had enjoyed the ability to pass up to $5.12 mill
Heed the canary in your farm’s financial coal mine
(Authors Note: This article will be a multi part series that discusses some of the challenges we are seeing due to the current farm economy and offers some thoughts and suggestions on action that can be taken.) Most of us know where the saying “canary in the coal mine” comes from. Basically, canaries were used in mines from the late 1800s to detect gases, such as carbon monoxide. The gas is deadly to humans – and canaries alike – in large quantities, but canaries are much more sensitive to small amounts of the gas, and so will react more quickly than humans. I always envisioned that a miner would stick a canary in a bird cage down in the mine, and if they saw the canary drop over dead, then it was time to get out. Boy was I wrong. A device was actually invented (see above picture) that had a circular door that would be kept open and had a grill to prevent the canary escaping. Once the canary showed signs of carbon monoxide poisoning the door would be closed and a val
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