Tax Change Could Hurt Farmers
By: Aaron Cheslock
Updated: October 13, 2012
Earlier this week, WTAJ aired a story about the impact a new Farm Bill could have in rural areas. Well, a new change in a tax rule being discussed in Washington, could set many farmers back, or even shut them down.
It's called the "Inheritance Tax". When a farmer dies, whoever inherits his farm has to pay a tax, as long as the farm is worth 5 million dollars or more. But they could move that to 1 or 1 1/2 million dollars. Bill Hoover runs B&D Acres in Tyrone, he says this change would put many more farmers in that tax range.
"...just about all of them would be in that tax range, because a farm is land based, and land is sky high now, not because they're that profitable, but because of development pressure. So it would be hard for a lot of next generation farmers to pay the tax on that amount of money to continue the operation."
Hoover also says it's double taxing the same asset, since the original money that a farmer uses to pay for a farm, is taxed when they buy it.
