AG INSIGHT USDA staff help in vaccination effort
Behind all the statistics reporting on how many people have received shots of the COVID-19 vaccine, a federal government agency has been quietly assisting that effort. That role came to light recently when the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that qualified staff members had reached the milestone of administering 1 million doses of the vaccine throughout the country. In response to the Biden Administration call to designate federally supported community vaccination centers across the country, USDA has been offering its clinical staff, facilities, cold storage infrastructure, public health experts and disaster response specialists for the effort. With many of its operations in rural areas, the agency has used that footprint to help expand the vaccination effort particularly among tribal communities and socially disadvantaged groups. In a recent count, more than 1,000 USDA personnel had been deployed as part of the vaccination campaign.
A look at estate tax, its impact on farms To say the federal estate tax, derisively referred to as the “death tax” by many of its opponents, hasn’t enjoyed much popularity since it was made a part of the 8
Cooperative Farming News
tax code more than 100 years ago would be a gross understatement. But the tax, a levy on the transfer of property from a deceased person to the heirs at death, applies only to that portion of an estate’s value that exceeds an exemption amount. As a result, it has never applied to all estates and its impact has diminished due to legislative changes in the exemption. The tax exemption has increased from $675,000 in 2000 to $11.58 million in 2020. Under present law, the estate of a person who at death owns assets in excess of the exemption amount must file a federal estate tax return. However, only returns that have an estate above the exemption after deductions for expenses, debts and bequests to a surviving spouse or charity are subject to tax at a rate of 40%. Two additional provisions further reduce estate tax liability for those estates that must file an estate tax return: portability and special use valuation. The portability provision applies specifically to married couples and allows a spouse whose taxable estate is less than the exemption amount ($11.58 million in 2020) to transfer any unused portion of their exemption to their surviving spouse. This unused portion is then added to the surviving spouse’s exemption amount, applicable at the time of their death. This provision allows married couples to more fully use their combined exemption amounts. The special use valuation provision allows farmland to be taxed at its value under actual use, rather than its potential use, as long as the land will continue to be used in agriculture for the next 10 years. The
