The American Dairy Coalition (ADC) successfully advocated for inclusion of its top immediate tax and policy goals for 2015 with the inclusion of several key tax "extenders" and the repeal of COOL.
On Friday, Dec. 18, the House and Senate passed both the Omnibus Appropriations bill to fund the government and a tax package to extend or make permanent a substantial number of tax provisions scheduled to expire, or already technically expired.
Of greatest importance to ADC members is the making permanent of Section 179. ADC President Laurie Fischer describes the importance of Section 179 to the dairy, cattle and commodities industries as follows: “This permanent tax provision will bring billions of tax savings to farmers, ranchers, processors and agriculture businesses throughout the nation by increasing expensing from $25,000 to $500,000 per year. This type of certainty and predictability is necessary and will help the dairy, livestock and agriculture industries’ owners make wise business investments.”
Fischer repeatedly came to Washington throughout 2015 to advocate the need for a fair tax and policy environment for ADC members, meeting with key leaders and chairmen of each relevant legislative jurisdiction, starting and finishing with her home state congressman, Speaker Paul Ryan.
Advocating on behalf of dairy, cattle and agriculture in general, Fischer was competing against some of the largest industry and corporate interests in America to make certain that agriculture's voice was heard.
In addition to making Section 179 permanent, ADC's additional tax priorities were also included in the tax package; of greatest note is the permanent relief for S corporations, which protects built-in tax gains and a five-year extension of the 50 percent bonus depreciation on new equipment and property purchases.
On the policy side, Fischer made several trips to Washington to advocate for the repeal of COOL. Since the threat of retaliation stemmed from COOL applying to meat and pork, Congress repealed those two areas after receiving assurances that this would prevent all retaliation. Originally, the House repealed meat, pork and chicken several months ago, but that stalled in the Senate. COOL's inclusion in this year-end package should prevent retaliation against ADC members and all dairy, cattle and agriculture in general. PD
—From American Dairy Coalition news release
