Thursday, September 8, 2011

the farmer and the tax man

We've talked about farming for a long time, but only recently taken some of the big steps to get there. (1. acquire land. 2. acquire hound dog  3. grow stuff?)  I've known that there was some tax benefit to farm land, and now that we've started to grow stuff, I wondered if we might be eligible.


So I did some in-depth academic research and was disappointed to learn that our 2/3 of an acre doesn't even bring us close to qualifying for a North Carolina farm tax ID, which requires that you own at least 10 acres.  I don't think we can include 9 1/3 acres of our neighbors' yards, even though our farm dog and chickens occasionally roam there. But Google didn't seem to know for sure, and tried instead to direct me to invisible fencing sites and forums where people talk about how to stop their dogs from chasing their chickens. Easy: trade in your dog for a house cat.

1 comment:

Farmers love back talk. Tell me more...