Tuesday, December 04, 2018

Nieces and Nephews in Farming?

AEI notes the House Ag chair is pushing to allow nieces and nephews to be "persons' for payment limitation purposes:
"In the midst of this week’s negotiations over the farm bill, House Committee on Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX) is pushing to remove any limits on subsidy payments to farms through what has become known as his “nieces and nephews” provision. This provision would increase the number of people eligible to receive up to $125,000 in subsidy payments under one of two major income transfer programs, whether the people in question really participate in the farm business or not.* * *Currently, only two people per each farm business can be eligible for these programs — called Price Loss Coverage and Agricultural Risk Coverage — capping total payments to a farm business to $250,000. However, the “nephews and nieces” provision proposed by the current chair of the House Committee on Agriculture would substantially increase the number of people eligible for a payment. For example, an agribusiness owner with four “nieces and nephews” described as “actively engaged in farming,” because they participate in an annual earning’s conference call, would be allowed to classify those four people as “actively engaged” because of that call. The owners would then be able to increase the subsidy paid to the farm business up to a limit of $1.5 million a year.

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