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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen-Agriculture 98, 1998-03-18, Page 41op MANOR Arts & Landscaping 41e, (519) 335-3240 ;SI Early Spring Planting Specials P4 WINDBREAKS - Seedlings to mature trees Pine, Spruce, Fir & Cedar LANEWAY TREES Deciduous trees from 6' to mature 15' - 20' Maples, Ash, English Oak, Linden, Honey Locust & more * NATIVE TREES & SHRUBS for Naturalization Projects* Tree seedling planter available in co-operation with Huron Stewardship Council Order early and we'll dig your trees so you can get them planted early RR #1 Bluevale Hwy. 86 East of Bluevale Don't Miss This Seminar for Small Flock Producers! This seminar details: • proper barn temperature settings for various classes of poultry • how to manage lighting to avoid cannibalism • proper water sanitation to avoid enteric diseases • proper floor bedding management • the importance of barn clean-outs and disinfecting techniques Please reply by March 20'" Hosted by Auburn Co-op - 526-7262 Corland Pasture Mixes, Gallagher Power Fencing, Burst Proof Waterpipe, Quick Couplers, Stock Tanks, Salt, Mineral Feeders, Posts, Grazing Supplies and More FENCE INSTALLATION AND PADDOCK SETUP CORLAND SEEDS LTD. Tim Prior R.R. #3 Brussels Located at the west end ,of Brussels Livestock LLAGOR POWER FENCE" SYSTEMS 519-887-9391 After Hours S87-9648 BRUSSELS AGRI-SERVICES GRAZIER'S SUPPLY THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 1998. PAGE A-21. Agriculture '98 Does it ever make sense to pay more taxes? The small businessperson must manage their operation to minimize the amount of tax that one has to submit. This has become the flag ship for some business. Farmers are no exception to this widely accepted theory. In fact, many consider it advisable to pay the least amount of tax each fiscal year. A few producers considering terminating farming activities, may create a problem when they decide to stop farming. If an individual has opted to report income for tax purposes on a cash basis, the inventory that is disposed of in the last year of operation becomes taxable income. This can result in a large amount of income in the last year of operation. If not properly managed, this income does not have a offsetting expense. The cost of acquiring the inventory has been claimed in previous years and so no offsetting expense is available. Taxes are progressive in nature, that is the larger the amount of taxable revenue, generally speaking the higher the percentage of tax that is payable. Inventory income could be taxed in excess of 50 per cent. It would seem logical then that the aim should pot be to minimize tax paid in any one year, but rather to minimize the total tax paid in a life time while maintaining a level of income that is acceptable to the owner and their family. One alternative that should be explored is to increase income in the year that the inventory increase occurs, or when it can be claimed with the least amount of tax. This usually occurs when the operation is expanding or when cash revenues are below average. This increase in inventory can be claimed as income on the Statement of Farming Activities line 9941. The YEAR INVENTORY VALUE INCOME CLAIMED ON LINE 9941 EXPENSE CLAIMED ON LINE 9938 199a 20,000 20,000 0 199b 60,000 60,000 20,000 199c 100,000 100,000 60,000 199d 100,000 100,000 100,000 199e 0 0 100,000 amount claimed can be any amount up to the market value of the inventory in that year of filing. When this amount is claimed in one year as income, it must be claimed as an expense in the following year on line 9938. If this optional amount of income is claimed, up to the value of inventory, in the year operations cease you will have an expense to offset the inventory sale and so will have no tax to pay on this amount of revenue. Let's look at an example: It would be hoped in the years 199a-199d that the offsetting costs of production and/or inventory purchase would offset the income claimed and result in only a marginal increase in the amount of tax paid. The real payoff would occur in the year that the inventory is sold. Does it ever make sense to pay more tax? An accountant/tax planner should address this with the farmer as they complete the tax returns to minimize the total tax paid over the life of the operation. A glimpse in the black box CONTINUED FROM A-20 over generations more rapidly. Dairy cattle improvement programs, for example, are entirely dependent on the technology of artificial insemination and the freezing of semen. This allows a bull to be evaluated accurately based on the performance of a large family of daughters. If he is selected on the basis of this information he can then produce many thousands of high merit daughters. Similarly, multiple ovulation and embryo transfer allow elite cows to produce many more progeny than would be possible through natui•il breeding. The success of modern genetic improvement has been achieved without being able to look into the genetic black box at the more than 70,000 genes that determine the unique genetic makeup of each animal. The explosive development of molecular genetic technologies are, however, beginning to give us our first glimpse inside that black box. With rare exceptions we are still a long way from being able to say what are the functions of each of the 70,000 genes, and even farther from being able to define what the optimum combination of variants at each of those genes should be. The rare exceptions involve mutations of genes that cause major deleterious effects. An example is the discovery of the gene that causes porcine stress syndrome, where afflicted pigs are extremely sensitive to stress and have carcasses with poor meat quality. The genetic test developed for this gene was the result of a collaborative effort between Dr. David MacLennan at the University of Toronto and Dr. Peter O'Brian at the University of Guelph, and is being used worldwide to improve pig welfare and meat quality by eliminating the mutant form from the population. Since defining the roles of the 70,000 plus genes is a long way off, animal scientists are currently hanging their hopes on genetic markers. These markers have no function of their own, they simply identify a particular region of genetic instructions. This region will contain hundreds of genes that do have a function, but we do not generally know which genes they are or what is their function. But, we can follow the inheritance of many different markers in families of animals and see whether inheritance of any of these markers is associated with improved performance. If they are, we then know that one or more genes in the region of the marker are having a beneficial effect. We do not need to discover which genes are involved, but can go to use the information on the genetic markers to make future selection decisions, since animals that inherit the marker will also inherit the useful effects associated with it. This is known as marker assisted selection, and the first Canadian project in this area, a collaborative venture between the scientists at the University of Guelph and the Saskatchewan Research Council, is just starting. The prospect of adding this marker information to the complex web of information already used in selection, is spurring further ...evelopments in intormamon gathering, statistical analysis and computing technologies. The genetic marker tests can be done at any age, even on early embryos, so it is possible to select animals or embryos on the basis of this information prior to entry to conventional performance testing programs. Existing reproductive technolo- gies, such as artificial insemination and embryo transfer, will help here by producing larger families than currently required, which can then be selected for the best marker combinations. Emerging reproductive technolo- gies such as IVF should allow large families to be produced from very young females, which opens the door to having one or two generations of marker selection prior to conventional selection with little increase in time. New technologies expand the web of complexity in the search for the best possible rate of genetic improvement.