Tax season is upon Americans, but there is some new tax relief in place this year for farmers, ranchers, and other Americans. Senator James Lankford (R-OK) said he’s hopeful for some relief across the country.
“When we did the Working Families Tax Cut Act last July, people didn’t realize how significant that really was. There were a lot of changes that got a lot of news, like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime for senior adults who are still working, and no tax on their social security. That’s really significant help for a lot of those folks, but for farmers and ranchers, we also did a permanent change on the death tax to be able to make sure that farmers and ranchers can pass down their farm and ranch back to the next generation as well, with their equipment and everything else, and not have to sell it off just to pay Uncle Sam the tax burden on that. So that was a huge change that’s made this year.”
Changes to expensing should be another benefit for farmers and ranchers.
“I had a part of the bill that we passed last July that was mine as well, dealing with full expensing. If you buy a tractor, for instance, or a truck for your operations in the past, you had to depreciate that out over several years. Now you can write that off in your taxes the year that you buy it, as of this year, so you don’t have to worry about if I buy a new piece of equipment, I’ve got to also borrow money to pay my taxes this year as well, because it takes so long to depreciate it out. That actually depreciates that year to be able to write it off. That’s a big difference for a lot of small businesses and family operations, so it’ll be a significant change. We hope it’s a real help to the economy and to individuals.”
He’s also hopeful that a change in reference prices will help ease the pressure on farmers’ bottom lines.
“Folks in farm and ranch country know full well that we changed reference prices. We did about half the farm bill in that bill last July that we’re able to get done. Now we have more work to do on some of the policy areas, but some of the financial areas, that’s a big change by the end of this year that people will feel in their reference prices.”