April 15th -Did ya'll remember to render to Caesar that which is Caesar's?

Tax day. Did anyone need a quick pointer on how to file an extension?

Nope, I did Turbo Tax in February.

It is so easy why file an extension?

BTW, what does Ceasar have to do with this?  Did Ceasar forget to file his taxes?

The bad guys tried to trap Jesus into saying not to pay taxes to Caesar.

13 Then they sent to Him some of the Pharisees and the Herodians, to catch Him in His words. 14 When they had come, they said to Him, "Teacher, we know that You are true, and care about no one; for You do not regard the person of men, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? 15 Shall we pay, or shall we not pay?" But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, "Why do you test Me? Bring Me a denarius that I may see it." 16 So they brought it. And He said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?" They said to Him, "Caesar's." 17 And Jesus answered and said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And they marveled at Him.

From New King James Version, Bible

So basically Christians should pay their taxes... to Caesar.

Shame, shame shame on you.  

My BP has been fair most of today.

I sent my check to the Department of the Treasury several weeks ago.  (I would put the sad yellow face here, if I knew how!)


Peace

Deane Adams wrote:
(I would put the sad yellow face here, if I knew how!)


Peace

Here you go Deane...
a colon then a left parentheses will do it.
Just be sure to uncheck the box that says disable smilies under options below the reply box before you submit

 

Hmmmm well crap. Extension it is I guess.

Or maybe I will just become a Sovereign Citizen. Is there a form I have to fill out? Hahahaha

Anne Miller wrote:

It is so easy why file an extension?

Lol, add some K1s, schedule Es, a schedule F, and a couple IRA conversions and things get complicated in a hurry…

Anyone here use or look into the farming section of the tax code? When I registered my Old Growth Orchard and Nursery as a business and looked into the tax code, it helped me realize a bit more how much big Ag has the deck stacked in their favor. First line item for writing off expenses (with equivalent taxable income reduction to a charitable donation deduction) is “chemicals”. I read every bit of the hundred + pages of IRS farming related documents I could find, and nothing defines “chemicals”! So it seems that a chem-ag farmer with the inclination to could not only get a deduction equivalent to charitable giving for poisoning land, water, air, food, fiber and employees. They could literally write off every single corporeal object they spend money on, as every physical thing in the universe is made of chemicals. With some cojones, creativity and enough of a legal budget they could even seemingly write off ideas which arise from chemical reactions in the brain resulting from consuming food made with chemicals.

Of course I do not exploit this loophole the size of the universe, but it did make me feel more justifiable in writing off my fencing and other tree protection related expenses. It seems to me any farmer complaining about excessive taxation is not doing their taxes right, because write offs available to us boggle the mind. I wish I had looked into all this sooner, because as a market gardener and small farmer I have paid much more tax than I owed for years, even with no stretching of logic and fairness. All this said, I do believe I owe a debt to society for all the advantages I have as a US citizen, so I try to err on the side of overpaying and am happy for the refund gravy most years.

Hey Dan, if you find that form, send the link, eh?

Ben Zumeta wrote:Anyone here use or look into the farming section of the tax code? When I registered my Old Growth Orchard and Nursery as a business and looked into the tax code, it helped me realize a bit more how much big Ag has the deck stacked in their favor. First line item for writing off expenses (with equivalent taxable income reduction to a charitable donation deduction) is “chemicals”. I read every bit of the hundred + pages of IRS farming related documents I could find, and nothing defines “chemicals”! So it seems that a chem-ag farmer with the inclination to could not only get a deduction equivalent to charitable giving for poisoning land, water, air, food, fiber and employees. They could literally write off every single corporeal object they spend money on, as every physical thing in the universe is made of chemicals. With some cojones, creativity and enough of a legal budget they could even seemingly write off ideas which arise from chemical reactions in the brain resulting from consuming food made with chemicals.

Of course I do not exploit this loophole the size of the universe, but it did make me feel more justifiable in writing off my fencing and other tree protection related expenses. It seems to me any farmer complaining about excessive taxation is not doing their taxes right, because write offs available to us boggle the mind. I wish I had looked into all this sooner, because as a market gardener and small farmer I have paid much more tax than I owed for years, even with no stretching of logic and fairness. All this said, I do believe I owe a debt to society for all the advantages I have as a US citizen, so I try to err on the side of overpaying and am happy for the refund gravy most years.

In general, a business can write off (deduct, or subtract from gross revenues to arrive at net profit) business expenses which include anything they spend money on to conduct their business.   There are limitations on questionable expenses such as food and entertainment among other things.  In the case of a tax audit, the business would need to provide receipts or other proof (i.e. check copies, credit card statements) of these expenses.  Capital assets such as vehicles, machinery, etc are generally deducted (depreciated) over time, which means a business deducts them over their useful life.  Occasionally, business stimulus legislation allows companies to “accelerate” depreciation and deduct the cost of capital expenses in the year they are purchased or some other shorter schedule. I certainly wouldn’t consider most deductions a loophole, but rather accurate accounting of profit.

And yes, if you operate your farm for profit (not a hobby) and file a schedule F, (or other depending on the business structure) you can deduct pretty much anything you use on your farm for business purposes.  However, assuming a farm is profitable, once the capital assets are fully depreciated, it would lose one of its largest deductions and would incur an increased tax liability.

I have found most CPAs to be very decent at their jobs, completing accurate, low audit risk, tax returns.  However, I have not found them to be great business strategists.  Anyone in business for themselves would probably be well served to take some strategic business classes, or at minimum, participate in a tax savvy internet forum.

Outright subsidies (almost none of which are available for homestead type farms) are probably more egregious support for corporate farms than deductions, but that is probably a subject for the cider press…

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Hey Dan, if you find that form, send the link, eh?

https://www.sog.unc.edu/sites/www.sog.unc.edu/files/Sov%20citizens%20quick%20guide%20Nov%2013.pdf

For more discussions on this topic, please remember this is a Cider Press Topic:

https://permies.com/t/233865/Sovereign-Citizens

We usually do our rendering in Feb. but this year we didn't make it until early March, but tax returns came back faster than ever, and in OR we got a kicker so higher tax returns than usual, thus we have a little bit of savings for the first time in a long time!