Thanks Cristen - at this point I think we will stick with being a hobby. We were trying to qualify for the farm deferral to lower our property tax rate, but then we discovered that if you don't continue to qualify you will owe back taxes. So its a liability if we ever manage to sell and move to larger acreage. (If you buy a farm deferral property and don't continue to meet the minimum requirements you will end up owing back taxes from even before you owned the property.)
I do our taxes and I use Turbo Tax. You have to have the version that has Schedule F built into it. I put all of our income and expenses together in Excel first and group the expenses by the seperate categories. This year I have Quickbooks and will use that. Quickbooks will import directly into Turbotax and make it even easier. You can give me a call sometime and I can walk you through it if you want. It is a bit nerve wracking but if you have all of your receipts then it isn't too difficult.
I loved my Dexter ladies, but since they had horns we really couldn't let the children in the pasture with them. (And their horns freaked out my city boy hubby!) Hubby asked that I concentrate on the goats, so for the sake of family harmony I sold the cows and put my efforts into the goats.
The goat herd quadrupled in size and now I think he may be regretting asking me to concentrate on the goats since they are much more prolific and despite the new shed I'm already running out room. :) Its going to very tough this year to keep my herd down to just 12 total does since I already have that many right now.
I have better records than last year, but after slogging through forms and forms and more forms, I'm pretty sure the tax software I used last year didn't come close to getting it right.
Hubby just said to me "maybe we should keep treating it as a hobby." So now I'm off to look up info on that. We had a profitable year in '09 but that is just because I got out of Dexters and sold off the breeding stock I had. We didn't break even on the goats.
Maybe this will be the year I will be able to stand parting with more of them. :)
I have better records than last year, but after slogging through forms and forms and more forms, I'm pretty sure the tax software I used last year didn't come close to getting it right.
Hubby just said to me "maybe we should keep treating it as a hobby." So now I'm off to look up info on that. We had a profitable year in '09 but that is just because I got out of Dexters and sold off the breeding stock I had. We didn't break even on the goats.
Maybe this will be the year I will be able to stand parting with more of them. :)
My husband does our taxes, and the only thing I know is that he is always bugging me to keep good records. But if you haven't done it up to now, it's a little late for your 2009 taxes. Wish I could be of more help.
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I do our taxes and I use Turbo Tax. You have to have the version that has Schedule F built into it. I put all of our income and expenses together in Excel first and group the expenses by the seperate categories. This year I have Quickbooks and will use that. Quickbooks will import directly into Turbotax and make it even easier. You can give me a call sometime and I can walk you through it if you want. It is a bit nerve wracking but if you have all of your receipts then it isn't too difficult.
Cristen
The goat herd quadrupled in size and now I think he may be regretting asking me to concentrate on the goats since they are much more prolific and despite the new shed I'm already running out room. :) Its going to very tough this year to keep my herd down to just 12 total does since I already have that many right now.
Good luck with your taxes.
Jane Wagman said:
Hubby just said to me "maybe we should keep treating it as a hobby." So now I'm off to look up info on that. We had a profitable year in '09 but that is just because I got out of Dexters and sold off the breeding stock I had. We didn't break even on the goats.
Maybe this will be the year I will be able to stand parting with more of them. :)