Current Tax Breaks Defended

Witnesses at a House Agriculture Committee hearing on opportunities for tax reform in rural America declined Wednesday to take a position on the proposed border adjustability tax while saying that a range of current farm and ranch tax breaks should remain in place. Patricia Wolff, senior director for congressional relations at the American Farm Bureau Federation, said that the Farm Bureau has not taken a position on the border adjustability tax because it has positives and negatives, and it has not been put on paper yet."Until we know what the proposal is, it is hard to say the impact it will have on our industry. We need to see how it is structured, how it is written before taking a position," Wolff said under questioning.Wolff noted that the border adjustability tax would tax a product when it is consumed rather than when it is produced. That would mean products being exported would not be taxed, but imports -- including fertilizer and fuel -- would be taxed.Doug Claussen, a certified public accountant with KCoe Isom, LLP, a firm that serves farmers in the Great Plains and California, said that the benefit of not taxing the exported product would go directly to the exporter, and it would be hard for people in agriculture to determine the benefit unless they farm near the border and export directly. A producer in Kansas whose wheat goes to the elevator and from there to the Gulf of Mexico would have a hard time seeing the benefit