The Annual South Central College Tax Update Meetings will be tomorrow afternoon and evening at the South Central College Faribault Campus. One of the presentations will be at 1:00 Wednesday afternoon and the second at 7:00 pm. There will be a review of the proposed tax law changes for 2018 as well as current 2017 topics. I did hear today the new tax law did pass the House and will be voted on tonight in the Senate. If it does pass I suspect Mark, Eric and Jeff are trying to figure how the new tax law will affect farmers.

The ritual after harvest before the end of the year is to look at your expenses and income for the year. It the tax liability is higher than normal we can prepay some expenses for next year increasing the deductions for this year. You may be able to defer income from livestock or crops sold this year into next year. If your income is not high enough you may be able to defer some expenses until January or pull some grain or livestock sales that you normally take next year into this year.

It is a tax advantage to somewhat "manage" your income and amount of taxes you need to pay. However, sooner or later if you made a profit you are going to pay taxes. Many farmers try and manager their income and tax liability so that it is about the same every year. With very low commodity prices in 2017 the challenge will be to have enough income to take advantage of depreciation and standard deductions.

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