OCR Text |
Show Farmers Seek Removal Of IRS Record Ruling Utah's largest organization of farmers and ranchers has urged v Congress to repeal the new Internal Revenue Service contemporaneous record-keeping regulations required for farmers to claim a business expense deduction on their farm vehicles. The new requirements, part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984, were designed to close loopholes in the tax laws for business-use deductions on personal or company-supplied vehicles. But according to Frank O. Nishlguchl, Riverside, President of the more than 20,000 member-family Utah .Farm Bureau Federation, the new regulations are causing the state's farmers and ranchers to spend otherwise productive worktime keeping the required mileage and use records. "These onerous requirements force farmers and ranchers to lose valuable time on the job filling out this unnecessary paperwork," the farm leader noted. "Consider the difficulty of trying to keep a record of each mile that a pick-up truck, is driven on our farms, or in the surrounding fields in a day and the magnitude of this task becomes much clearer," he added. Nisiuguchi said four proposals in Congress, supported by more than 200 co-sponsors, could relieve farmers and ranchers of this burdensome requirement. He cited, in particular, Senate Bill 260, authored by Senators John Heinz (R-Pa.) and David Pryor (D-Ark.), which calls for a complete repeal of the recordkeeping requirements. "This measure would give farmers, as well as many other citizens, needed relief from this unnecessary burden, returnjng us to the business-deduction record requirements in effect prior to January 1," Nishlguchl explained. "In a time when farmers and ranchers need every waking moment to economically survive in our depressed industry, this intrusion into our affairs in the name of 'deficit reduction' is nothing more than an unproductive burden," Nishiguchi stated. |