Duvall
The following may be attributed to American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall:
“Comprehensive tax reform is essential to addressing the financial challenges faced by America’s farmers and ranchers. The tax-reform framework announced today is an important step toward a fair and equitable tax system that encourages success, savings, investment, and entrepreneurship.
“Farm Bureau is encouraged to see that this framework includes important principles such as lower tax rates for individuals who own businesses, elimination of the death tax and some business interest deductibility. Farm Bureau looks forward to working with tax writers to refine the proposal to ensure that tax reform lowers effective tax rates for farm and ranch businesses.
“Farmers and ranchers need permanent tax provisions like the continuation of cash accounting and like-kind exchanges, unlimited stepped-up basis, and lower capital gains taxes. Agriculture is a high-risk, high-input, capital-intensive business and these provisions are essential to success. We look forward to working with Congress to assure that these meaningful reforms are included in any comprehensive tax package.”