Wyoming Farm Bureau

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2013—Farmers and ranchers need a tax code to manage the risks associated with agriculture while complying with tax liabilities, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. In a statement filed today with the House Ways and Means Committee for a hearing on small business taxation, AFBF urged congressional members to maintain cash accounting tools and higher small business expensing limits in any tax code rewrite.

Cash accounting tools, like the deferral of commodity and product receipts and prepaying the cost of livestock feed, fertilizer and other farm supplies, are important to farmers. Proposed changes to cash accounting rules, which would require some farmers to change to accrual accounting, would be time-consuming and costly to farms and ranches.

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 9, 2013 – The Health Insurance Tax will hurt small business employees the hardest, according to congressional testimony today by New York Farm Bureau President and dairy owner Dean Norton. Testifying before the House Small Business Subcommittee on Health and Technology, Norton, also a board member of the American Farm Bureau Federation, encouraged members to cosponsor H.R. 763, which would repeal the HIT.

The HIT, which was passed as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, will be levied on a health insurance company’s net premiums. But, said Norton, in the end it will be employees who ultimately pay the price.

“Because of escalating health insurance premiums, we’ve had to significantly change the cost structure from covering about 90 percent of the insurance cost to approximately 50 percent through a high deductible plan,” said Norton. “Unfortunately, the people who are really hurt by this change are the employees. They now have to contribute a larger portion of the expense when they seek medical attention.”