Rural Practice Digest

Issue No. 5

Issue No. 5 is now complete and posted below for subscribers. This time the lead tax article addresses a tax issue that can find its way into several areas for farmers and ranchers - the IRS constructive receipt doctrine. There are times when a taxpayer can be attributed income for tax purposes that has not yet been received. It is seen sometimes with government price-support payments and deferred payment contracts, as well as with checks. Of course, the biggest area of concern is with those deferred payment contracts. Proper structuring is absolutely critical to get the desired tax result. I go through the issue in detail in the lead article, and also discuss the language from a dissenting opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court in June that seems to have some implications for the constructive receipt doctrine - at least in the minds of the two dissenting Justices.

The annotations are full of the most recent court opinion and IRS developments of relevance to your practice. From CAFO regulations to Swampbuster to a federal court in D.C. saying that the Biden Administration violated federal environmental law by discontinuing the building of the border wall and terminating President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. The case involved a rancher whose ranch has suffered greatly from the flow of illegal border crossings.

There’s also been legislation proposed in the U.S. House to provide emergency assistance (i.e., taxpayer dollars) to farmers, and many relevant tax-related court rulings. The Social Security Administration has released some inflation-adjusted numbers for 2025. As a bonus to subscribers, I will provide a comprehensive inflation-adjusted document with many tax provisions in early November. That will be in addition to Issue No. 6 that will come later in the month.

I trust that you will enjoy reading Issue No. 5 and find it beneficial to your practice. Let me know if you have suggestions for each month’s lead article.