Ag Policy Blog

Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan released a tax proposal that would include a number of provisions good for agriculture.

While much of the proposal has been criticized by the left in Washington as benefitting the primarily the wealthy, a national accounting firm that works with agriculture across the country said in a news release Monday the Ryan proposal is worth considering for farm country.

There are a number of items in the proposal that could benefit agriculture:

-Providing all businesses with the benefit of full and immediate write-offs of their investments in both tangible and intangible assets.

-Repealing all estate taxes.

-Repealing the alternative minimum tax.

-Streamlining the current seven-tiered tax rate structure of 10% to 39.6% for individuals to a lower three tax brackets, 12%, 25% and 33%.

-Lowering the corporate tax rate to 20% from 35%.

-Reducing the double taxation of corporate income through the reduction of tax on dividends and capital gains of individual shareholders.

-A new 25% business tax rate for small businesses that are organized as sole proprietorships or pass-through entities.

As recently as 2013 the American Farm Bureau Federation came out in support of repealing the alternative minimum tax as well as the estate tax, as a means to attract younger generations back to the farm.

In a news release Monday K Coe Isom Chief Executive Officer Jeff Wald touted Ryan’s proposal as good for farmers.

“This appears to be a great start to an important effort,” he said. “Farmers in the United States support the goals of lowering tax rates and simplifying the tax code, provided those efforts don’t take away the flexibility farmers rely upon for their businesses and for financial planning.”

Wald said while the details are yet to be worked out, he called the proposal a “good-faith start at an effort that could benefit farmers.”

What wasn’t included in the proposal is any mention of removing farmers’ ability to use cash accounting – something included in previous tax reform bills.

“There are some items in this proposal that would be clearly beneficial for farmers, such as immediate expensing of equipment purchases,” Wald said. “Other portions of the proposal, such as the new business tax for small businesses will require detailed study to ensure that they will not inadvertently harm U.S. farmers.”

The Washington Post reports the Ryan plan is seen as an alternative to the “deep rate cuts” proposed by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, http://wapo.st/….

Follow me on Twitter @toddneeleyDTN

© Copyright 2016 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved.