95% of Farmers Have Little to Worry About this Election

The media is abuzz over the election and people are just absolutely sick of it all. We certainly won’t let any down. We will add to it, but just this once!

The chance of Hillary Clinton getting elected as the next president are pegged at about 85-90%. Part of her tax plan includes a drop in the Estate and Gift Tax Exemption from the current $5,450,000 to $3,500,000. Farmers all over the country are up in arms over this possibility thinking their family farms are now going to be subject to the death tax.

The fact of the matter is that, according to the Washington Post, only 3% of farms in the United States had to file an estate tax return in 2015. Overall only a little over a quarter of the 3% that had to file the estate tax return, owed any money at all. This means of all the farms in America, 0.8% owed money to the federal estate tax. The other 99.8% of farm estates did not.

The average value of farmland in this country has done from $1210 per acre in 2002 to $3010 in 2016. Per Agday.org, the average size of a farm now stands at 441 acres. Doing very simple math, the average farm value now stands at over $1.3 million. With machinery, livestock, crop against liabilities, the average farm estate clocks in at a little over $1,600,000 for the estate tax.

If Hillary drops the Estate and Gift Tax Exemption to $3,500,000, more farms will statistically be included, but it will not affect anywhere near the average family farm.

If you are a farmer or know a farmer who may have an operation valued at over $7,000,000 including machinery, livestock etcetera, we do handle business succession and estate valuation and would certainly like to help with this or any other federal legal needs.