Blog

0

Highway Bill Rescues Insurers

December 1, 2015

By Chris Clayton DTN Ag Policy Editor

OMAHA (DTN) -- Congress appears to have agreement on a five-year highway bill, but the people dancing the most over a bill to lay asphalt may be the crop insurance industry.

The conference report for the highway bill includes a provision that eliminates the $300-million-a-year cut in crop insurance that was part of the budget deal last month. Members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees pushed congressional leaders to find a way to avoid and eliminate the cut to crop insurance, which would have totaled $3 billion over 10 years.

The highway bill does not include any offset measures for crop insurance, but simply included a provision repealing section...

Read more
0

An Exit Strategy For Corn?

If you are one of many storing corn this year, hoping for better prices later, you may now be wondering what you've gotten yourself into. After all, the fundamental outlook for grains as we near the end of 2015 is not so rosy. It seems hard to believe, but even in 1984 to 1987, the most bearish era in the history of modern corn prices, spot prices reached or exceeded their six-month high in each calendar year (Source: DTN ProphetX). A second consecutive year of good growing weather has bulked up supplies of corn, soybeans, and wheat just as the U.S. dollar index is trading near its highest level in eight months. Cheaper currencies in Brazil and Ukraine along with plentiful supplies of feed wheat are hurting...
Read more
0

Ask the Taxman: Questions on a Charitable Retirement

Ask the Taxman by Andy Biebl Questions on a Charitable Retirement

QUESTION:

I read your article in the October Progressive Farmer involving a grain producer who created a Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT), sold grain, and took back an annuity to spread out the income taxes and eliminate the self-employed Social Security tax. We have a breeder hen farm with a sale contract that will close soon. Is it possible to follow the same method to minimize some of the taxes, which are projected to be about $150,000? Some of the income is ordinary from prior depreciation and some is capital gain. The farm is nearly 100% depreciated, and we are in our 70s so are not interested in another Section 1031 rollover into other real...

Read more