Ag Expo: Death & Taxes - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Ag Expo: Death & Taxes

The late 2012 "Fiscal Cliff" scare left many farm families scrambling to secure assets before the potential change.
Tax consultant Michael Baron says the good news about the bill that was passed by Congress in the 11th hour --- is that the estate tax was kept at the current $5,120,000 per person --- double that for married people.

Baron's "Keeping the Family Farm in the Family" presentation at the Ag Expo this week focused on changes that did take place.
Upper income earners could pay as much as 23.8 percent for income on capital gains --- up from 15 percent in 2012.
Baron predicts that the coming wave in income taxation will be phase outs --- meaning the more you earn, fewer deductions will be available.
He says this will have a big impact in North Dakota --- where estate net worth is the highest percentage per capita in the nation --- having a lot to do with farm land value and oil revenue.
Baron says the new 'permanence' of the estate tax law is good news for planning, which he says should be done annually in the same way income taxes are taken care of.

(Michael Baron, President Great Plains Diversified Services Inc.) "The estate taxes were left where they were the year before and they made it permanent. Before this time we were dealing with a two year tax law and before that we had to deal with what was called a tenure tax law. It's nice to know that we have something more permanent to deal with."