The Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) collects information on income of farm households from a variety of sources. Traditionally, the amount of money income received during a calendar year has been the primary income measure for assessing the economic wellbeing of farm households....

Under the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, most farmers will pay less Federal income tax, and farm families will find it easier to transfer the family farm across generations. The new law--the tax portion of 1997 legislation to balance the Federal budget by 2002--emerges from years of debate on...

Various forms of farmer savings accounts have been proposed to help U.S. farmers manage their income variability. Financial incentives include tax-deferral and government matching deposits. This paper estimates farmer eligibility, program size, and benefit distributions for two congressional...

The Food and Rural Economics Division of ERS designed the following series of policy-oriented, timely publications to provide background and analysis for decision makers and others.

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 significantly changed incentives for investing. This analysis specifically examines how changes in marginal tax rates, depreciation schedules, and the investment tax credit altered the cost of capital and net investment in agriculture. A stochastic coefficients...