Farm Talk's Top 10
The Top 10 farmer tax deductions:
10. Claim the border collie as a full-time employee, with deductions for housing, meals and entertainment (which means you can deduct dead chickens twice).
9. Get creative depreciating those cows—one bad quarter, 25 percent depreciation; a bad eye, 50 percent.
8. Make sure Junior always has a hay bale in the back of his pickup while dragging Main so the gas is deductible.
7. With testimony from the banker, it ought to be a cinch to qualify the whole darn farm as a non-profit organization.
6. A Vegas trip should absolutely be considered a deductible warm-up for spring planting.
5. Check the cattle in the north pasture by taking the scenic route—right past a Canadian fishing lake.
4. Figure out the portion of your taxes that went to Wall Street bankers and write it off as an under-duress charitable contribution.
3. A new dishwasher can be considered a business expense if your wife refuses to help sort cattle until she gets one.
2. An evening at the local tavern counts as deductible "continuing education" if you discussed the weather or the markets.
1. List your feed dealer, seed dealer, implement dealer, farm store owner and farm newspaper editor as dependents.
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