Source: United States Senator for North Dakota John Hoeven
WASHINGTON – Senator John Hoeven joined U.S. Senators John Thune (R-S.D.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and the entire Senate Republican caucus, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in urging President Biden not to increase taxes on farmers and ranchers. The senators outlined the devastating effect this action would have on multi-generation operations and urged the administration to reconsider the proposal.
“These [proposed] changes are a significant tax increase that would hit family-owned businesses, farms, and ranches hard, particularly in rural communities,” the senators wrote. “These businesses consist largely of illiquid assets that will in many cases need to be sold or leveraged in order to pay the new tax burden. Making these changes could force business operators to sell property, lay off employees, or close their doors just to cover these new tax obligations. The complexity and administrative difficulty of tracking basis over multiple generations and of valuing assets that are not up for sale will lead to colossal implementation problems and could also lead to huge tax bills that do not accurately reflect any gains that might have accumulated over time. As you will recall, a proposal to reach a similar outcome by requiring an heir to ‘carry-over’ the decedent’s tax basis was tried before in 1976—and failed so spectacularly it never came into effect. It was postponed in 1978 and repealed in 1980.”
Click here to read the full letter.
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