July 9, 2025 • 18 mins
Host and American Family Farmer, Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com introduces us to Tim Gradert, Senior Tax Manager with Uncommon Farms. In this episode, Doug and Tim explore the often-overlooked power of smart tax planning in agriculture. From proactive strategies that boost profitability to overcoming unique hurdles family farmers face during tax season, Tim shares insight drawn from years of hands-on experience in ag-specific tax preparation. They dive into deductions that can make a difference—like Section 179 and bonus depreciation—and highlight the importance of year-round tax planning, accurate record keeping, and leveraging tools like AgManager® for seamless tax integration. You’ll also hear how UnCommon Farms supports farmers not just at tax time, but year-round—through education, software solutions, and personal consultation—to help ensure no opportunity is missed. Whether you're navigating asset basis, succession planning, or compliance with changing ag laws, this episode is packed with advice designed to keep your farm financially resilient and strategically prepared.
Website: AmericanFamilyFarmerShow.com
Social Media: @GoodDayNetworks
Website: AmericanFamilyFarmerShow.com
Social Media: @GoodDayNetworks
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The American Family Farmer podcast sponsored in part by Caldron,
The Safe proven Way to lose weight.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Check it all out at toploss dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Next in line on the American Family Farmer, Tim Gredert,
who is a tax consultant. We're going to talk about
tax preparedness, tax laws, how they're affected, all the laws that.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Are changing hurdles for farmers.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
The company handles larger family farms. Tax conversation is beneficial, though,
I think, to everybody. And so Tim Great is here,
who's the senior tax manager for Uncommon Farms. He's in Geneseo, Illinois.
He's actually not, he's down and that's where the headquarters
(00:42):
are for Uncommon Farms. But as I understand it, you're
working in Florida, so you have I'm guessing here, Tim,
you must have clients all over the country, right.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
That's correct. I think I can safely say that I've
done the state income tax return for every state that
has in come taxes, So that's good.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
The specialty that you have, how did you develop your expertise?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Did you go to school?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
You're a tax guy, tax consultant prepared A lot of
these tax firms go to schools and hire people that specifically.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I know a fell as a matter of fact.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Who went to school for tax preparedness, went to work
for one of the big firms, figured out how this
but he was an oil and gas guy and figured
out how it worked, and he started to invest in
oil and gas and now has become very wealthy because
he understood how the tax laws worked. And I wonder
(01:39):
how many times you see that You've said, I think
you said off the air before we got started, that
you prepared taxes in pretty much every state in the country.
So how often do you see something like that where
there's someone who works for another firm and they say, Wow,
this is a great thing, the expertise, and then they
go off on their own.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Quite often I see people to start out in the
big firm and decide, you know, that's not the rat
race I want to be in. So they end up
branching off on their own and hanging their own shingle
and become very successful.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah, well that's a good way to do it. Learn
and then do it on your own. So tell us
about uncommon farms and what you offer.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Well, I work in the Tax department on common farms,
which basically what our offerings are is we try to
specify ourselves just to farm taxes, as was mentioned before,
and we kind of talked through things that Uncommon Farms
kind of is leaning towards some of the bigger farm
operations in the country. We have farm operators all over
(02:40):
North America and even in the Canada. My specific department,
we focus on helping farm farmers mitigate their tax issues.
Try to make sure that I guess the proper term
to say is that they're paying their fair share, but
not a dollar more. But Uncommon Farms as a whole
(03:02):
does a whole bunch of different financial aspects relating to
the farms, anywhere from financial consulting to hr to helping
develop grants, writing to come up with some major projects
that they're maybe looking at and help fund those things.
(03:24):
Anything you can think of that's related to finances and farming,
we probably offer something for that.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
All right, So let's talk about tax, the tax environment
for family farmers. We all complain about how complex the
tax issues are, the tax the programs and the.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Laws change every year.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
How much of a factor is the change every year
in tax law as it affects family farmers.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Obviously, we need to stay up to date on those things.
I have to have forty hours of education every year
just to keep my license to do taxes, and I
tried to concentrate on class study that has a background
to it, which can be barely difficult. There's not very
many tax preparers around the country that really sputs our
(04:16):
specific to farmers and agriculture right, which kind of makes
us stick out from the bunch.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, A hold on a second. Tim Gradt, who is
a tax manager for Uncommon Farms, is visiting this week
gone the American Family Farmer Program. I'm Doug Stefan. Elizabeth
Miller is here from Caldron, which started thirty years ago.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
You can't be successful with a product that doesn't work right.
And the way that has started is a really awesome
story too, because it starts out as a story of healing.
So it was created by nurses to help patients lose
weight and feel better and help with joint pain, help
with sleep. And one of the side benefits I noticed
was that people were toning and and actually losing a
(05:01):
lot of weight, and they said, Wow, this could actually
be a solution for white loss and not just a
health supplement. It's got an awesome forty five day return
policy on there. All the information is on the website
toploss dot com. And we've also got a big sale
going on right now too, and every purchase gets you
free product.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
That's toploss dot com.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
They've helped thousands, tens of thousands toplass dot com use
the discount code Doug Doug and you get free shipping.
There's nothing but benefits when you go to toplass dot com
and use Calendrin.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Back on the American Family Farmer.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
What is your taxiar all about? We have these conversations
every week with experts. That's what part of the American
Familyfarmer program is about. In addition to some of the
important news that affects the American Family Farmer. I'll have
a few minutes of time later on in the program
to talk to you about something that I think is
important with my spin on it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Every week.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Though the program is on the air on one hundred
or two hundred or three hundred, I'm not even sure
any one hundreds of radio stations carry the American Family Farmer.
But one of the good things now is that you
can also catch up with this on a podcast Americanfamilyfarmershow
dot com wherever you get your podcasts Americanfamilyfarmershow dot com.
(06:20):
We're talking to Tim Gradert, who is a tax manager
Senior tax manager for Uncommon Farms and Up headquartered in Illinois.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
He travels around.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
The country to do tax returns. The tax environment is
what we're talking about, their tax services, the tax law
for agriculture. Should we assume that the issues are more
or less the same as to how the tax laws
change each year? And as you said, I think apptly
a few minutes ago, pay you're a fair share, but
(06:52):
not a dollar more. I think that's the practical. I
think there ought to be a message, and I know
that's not really your Bailey Wick, but maybe this is
good for your business to have it as complicated as
it is, but I don't think it's good for most
of us. Is there a way that we could come
up with a tax system that was good for people
(07:13):
preparing and also good for the farm because there's how
much time and effort and money does it take to
keep up with all these tax plans and changes and stuff.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Well, Doug, I don't want to get into politics, but
I guess the answer to that is that tax laws
are written by politicians, and politicians are known to be
people that have been successful in life and don't want
to pay more than their fair share, and they get
to write the rules.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
And then we have to interpret them. But I have
to believe that there are people like you.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Behind the scenes who are schooling them. We all were
talking about the nine hundred page a bill that took
eighteen hours to read into the right record in the
Senate this past week, and how ridiculous all of that
stuff is. So, but people like you have to know
what are in those bills right in order to understand
how they apply. And one of the things I was
(08:13):
told by my tax person many years ago, who sort
of smiled when he said it, Yep, they adapt all
these changes, and there are about one thousand tax accountants
around the country who, before the ink dries on the page,
have figured out how to get.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Around those rules.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Do you agree with that assessment that the rules are
made to be broken or you figure a way around them?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yeah, I would agree that interpreting the rules is probably
the main goal of the tax accountant to make sure
that the rules are interpreted to favor their clientele, and
of course, the biggest issue that you have to fight
is you interpret the rules and this us with your client.
Here is what the rural states, and the client of
(09:03):
course says, well, maybe it states this, but I want
to do this. Can I do this and still be
under the rules? And sometimes our hardest job is to
educate the farmer that you know, there's a line that
you don't cross. Our goal is to stand right at
that line and look over, but we don't want to
step over it. So sometimes we have to say, hey,
wait a minute, I think you need to take a
(09:24):
step back. I think you've gone a step too far
trying to interpret what this law is meant to do.
So sometimes that's the most difficult job that I have.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
What about some of the policies, the things that the
farmer needs to know in order to give you the
information that you need.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Is there software?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
What is there that you have put together or either
programs that you can get from the various tax consultancies
which would help farmers prepare themselves for you.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Well, I guess I can kind of toot our own
horn here. We have our our own proprietary software that
we offer to farmers along with the full staff that
can give them technical support on how to use the software.
They can review the entries for them to make sure
that the numbers are accurate when they're done, or it
(10:17):
can even go so far as to do the entries
for them. Or we go totally full service and say, hey,
just send us your bills, send us copies of your deposits,
and we will write the checks for you, and we
will do the entries as we write the checks and
do the full service accounting for you. So you do
offer that service.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, how often do people take ad manager it that way?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
They just want to wash their hands and they trust
you or firms like yours to do the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
I would say we have quite a few of our
larger farmers that that go that route just because they
know what they know and they know that their success
is not because they are expert accountants. Their success is
because they know agriculture and know how to farm. So
sometimes your best bet is to hire the smartest person
(11:07):
in the room to do the job you don't know
how to do. So that's kind of what we offer.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
So this is the not the good old days when
mom pot cattle would sit around the table and the
dad does all the work, the heavy work outside, and
mom keeps the books.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
How often is that still the case?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
More and more farms, as I've highlighted over the last
couple of years, are.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Being run by women. And I don't mean to.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Sort of stick my finger into a hole a pile
of mud, but I think that in essence, women are
more running farms today than has ever been the case
before and where the tradition was. As I just explained,
the guys do the work outside and the women do
the work inside. That's got to be going by the wayside,
(11:56):
isn't it. It is.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
There's still some are operations out there that do it
that way, but more and more it's become more of
a true partnership between the husband and the wife for
all all the activities are shared, if not equally, closer
to equally than they were thirty forty fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Well, it's really kind of an interesting reality, isn't it
When you look. I just find the changes that are
coming along to be very positive frankly, and I think
you're encouraging it to a certain extent. Uncommon Farms your
website is uncommonfarms dot com, is it not?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I'm looking yes at common farms dot com.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah, check that out and find out what's going on
and how you can be helped by the folks at
uncommon Farms here speaking of help my sixty second way
to focus you on your weight and the program that
is put together by Calitrin. Each day there are new
people that go to top loss dot com, which is
a website for Caltron to figure out a way to
(13:03):
lose weight, the simple way, the non.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Toxic way, and to keep it off.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
If you've decided you're going to go down the drug route,
that's okay. Caltron works with it. The thing that drugs
can't do is to you know at first, you don't
know what down the road. They can tell you it's
not going to harm you, but you don't really know
what the effect is going to be in ten or
twenty years on your body. But that's okay if you
want to go on the program. I don't discourage people
(13:28):
from doing that. I just know that if you don't
stay on the product, you're going to not continue to
lose weight. And that's where Caltron comes in. Keep the
weight off once you worked hard to get rid of it,
and the non toxicity of this program makes it the
number one way to really safely lose weight because you'll
know what the impact is down the road. Toploss dot
(13:50):
Com is the website, and I send you there each
time we're talking about this to focus on the special
of the weekend, and right now you can say fifty
percent off right now today on caltron as you look
at the huge success rate it has looking.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Around their website.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
By the way, you can either use capsules or powder
with the Calidron, which rebuilds lean muscle tissue, boost your metabolism,
promotes healing as you lose the weight. Please set your
own goals. Talk to a consultant because they're there. They
help you out at toplass dot com and take advantage
of the special right now two for the price of one.
(14:31):
Use the discount code Doug Dug on all orders over
fifty bucks and you'll also get free shipping that's at
toplaws dot com for Caltron.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Running a farm is a gift. I think it is.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I think the ability I've been around cows all my life.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
We're talking with Tim.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Grader, who's the senior tax manager for Uncommon Farms of
their headquarters in Illinois, but I think Brighton, Illinois is
where their headquarters are. If you're a family farmer and
you're trying to have long term sustainability, as you're trying
to make your way through the rules and regulations to
be efficient in your operation, to optimize your finances, to
(15:14):
have sound insurance programs for example, and you.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Know the big issue.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
I think today every one of the farm trades that
I look at, three or four of them I look
at every day. Tim there's always, always, always an issue
with generational change, like when you get to be my
age and you want to hand the farm down. I'm
talking to my two children who we're working on things
right now as a matter of fact. So I would
(15:40):
imagine if you're a tax person, and then you know
what the tax ramifications are, the death tax, which is
one of the most ungodly, most ridiculous, asinine things in
the arsenal of trying to screw the farmer and everybody
else in this country. How do you work with with
that introduction?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
How do you work with people to save the farms?
Speaker 4 (16:05):
As one of our clients had mentioned a few weeks ago,
everything we do to help them means nothing. If in
the end, they can't pass it on to somebody else.
So that's probably the most important aspect of what we
do for our clientele is number one to make sure
they're successful, but number two to make sure that that
(16:27):
success can get passed on to somebody else. So we
really have been trying to concentrate on secession planning. What
can we do to help. Obviously, everybody's different, everybody has
different goals. Some people it's Okay, I've got one son,
he's going to farm. He's going to get the farm.
(16:49):
Fear and simple, no questions asked, Let's make it happen.
Other people it's like, Okay, I've got a son that
wants to farm. I get another son that's a little
younger that we just don't know what he wants. We've
got two daughters that have married farmers. You know, they
are farming. How do we separate what we've gotten what
they're they've gotten into. And and maybe we've got a
(17:13):
daughter that's that's moved off to the big city and
and not ever planned on coming back, but you know
she she deserves some of this inheritance too. So it
gets difficult at times, but but basically, what it amounts
to is we need to figure out what is the
ultimate goal, who wants what, and how can we make
it happen. We We've got somebody on staff that that
(17:34):
is their specialty, Mike Downey, which you may may have
heard of him. He's he writes several articles for national
publications and he's done his work for quite a few years.
He's he's done a wonderful job with a lot of
our clients with with getting a plan in place, making
sure that we're passing the farm onto the next generation
(17:57):
without having to give half of it away to the
government in the process.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
It's fair to maximize deductions and credits. You must be
in compliance empowered to do things the right way, but
there's no excuse for the government being able to take away.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
The farm that you work so hard for.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
So perhaps the best place for you to turn if
you have questions about this is to the website of
Uncommon Farms. It's pretty simple on uncommonfarms dot com. Tim
Gratert is their senior tax manager. Very helpful information here.
As we are interested in helping as many folks who
are on the farm stay on the farm as possible.
(18:39):
That's our mission here on the American Family Farmer. Thanks Tim,
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
The American Family Farmer podcast sponsored in part by Caldron.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Which is the safe
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Way for you to lose weight and keep it off
The American Family Farmer podcast sponsored in part by Caldron,
The Safe proven Way to lose weight.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Check it all out at toploss dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Next in line on the American Family Farmer, Tim Gredert,
who is a tax consultant. We're going to talk about
tax preparedness, tax laws, how they're affected, all the laws that.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Are changing hurdles for farmers.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
The company handles larger family farms. Tax conversation is beneficial, though,
I think, to everybody. And so Tim Great is here,
who's the senior tax manager for Uncommon Farms. He's in Geneseo, Illinois.
He's actually not, he's down and that's where the headquarters
(00:42):
are for Uncommon Farms. But as I understand it, you're
working in Florida, so you have I'm guessing here, Tim,
you must have clients all over the country, right.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
That's correct. I think I can safely say that I've
done the state income tax return for every state that
has in come taxes, So that's good.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
The specialty that you have, how did you develop your expertise?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Did you go to school?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
You're a tax guy, tax consultant prepared A lot of
these tax firms go to schools and hire people that specifically.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I know a fell as a matter of fact.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Who went to school for tax preparedness, went to work
for one of the big firms, figured out how this
but he was an oil and gas guy and figured
out how it worked, and he started to invest in
oil and gas and now has become very wealthy because
he understood how the tax laws worked. And I wonder
(01:39):
how many times you see that You've said, I think
you said off the air before we got started, that
you prepared taxes in pretty much every state in the country.
So how often do you see something like that where
there's someone who works for another firm and they say, Wow,
this is a great thing, the expertise, and then they
go off on their own.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Quite often I see people to start out in the
big firm and decide, you know, that's not the rat
race I want to be in. So they end up
branching off on their own and hanging their own shingle
and become very successful.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah, well that's a good way to do it. Learn
and then do it on your own. So tell us
about uncommon farms and what you offer.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Well, I work in the Tax department on common farms,
which basically what our offerings are is we try to
specify ourselves just to farm taxes, as was mentioned before,
and we kind of talked through things that Uncommon Farms
kind of is leaning towards some of the bigger farm
operations in the country. We have farm operators all over
(02:40):
North America and even in the Canada. My specific department,
we focus on helping farm farmers mitigate their tax issues.
Try to make sure that I guess the proper term
to say is that they're paying their fair share, but
not a dollar more. But Uncommon Farms as a whole
(03:02):
does a whole bunch of different financial aspects relating to
the farms, anywhere from financial consulting to hr to helping
develop grants, writing to come up with some major projects
that they're maybe looking at and help fund those things.
(03:24):
Anything you can think of that's related to finances and farming,
we probably offer something for that.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
All right, So let's talk about tax, the tax environment
for family farmers. We all complain about how complex the
tax issues are, the tax the programs and the.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Laws change every year.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
How much of a factor is the change every year
in tax law as it affects family farmers.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Obviously, we need to stay up to date on those things.
I have to have forty hours of education every year
just to keep my license to do taxes, and I
tried to concentrate on class study that has a background
to it, which can be barely difficult. There's not very
many tax preparers around the country that really sputs our
(04:16):
specific to farmers and agriculture right, which kind of makes
us stick out from the bunch.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, A hold on a second. Tim Gradt, who is
a tax manager for Uncommon Farms, is visiting this week
gone the American Family Farmer Program. I'm Doug Stefan. Elizabeth
Miller is here from Caldron, which started thirty years ago.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
You can't be successful with a product that doesn't work right.
And the way that has started is a really awesome
story too, because it starts out as a story of healing.
So it was created by nurses to help patients lose
weight and feel better and help with joint pain, help
with sleep. And one of the side benefits I noticed
was that people were toning and and actually losing a
(05:01):
lot of weight, and they said, Wow, this could actually
be a solution for white loss and not just a
health supplement. It's got an awesome forty five day return
policy on there. All the information is on the website
toploss dot com. And we've also got a big sale
going on right now too, and every purchase gets you
free product.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
That's toploss dot com.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
They've helped thousands, tens of thousands toplass dot com use
the discount code Doug Doug and you get free shipping.
There's nothing but benefits when you go to toplass dot com
and use Calendrin.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Back on the American Family Farmer.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
What is your taxiar all about? We have these conversations
every week with experts. That's what part of the American
Familyfarmer program is about. In addition to some of the
important news that affects the American Family Farmer. I'll have
a few minutes of time later on in the program
to talk to you about something that I think is
important with my spin on it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Every week.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Though the program is on the air on one hundred
or two hundred or three hundred, I'm not even sure
any one hundreds of radio stations carry the American Family Farmer.
But one of the good things now is that you
can also catch up with this on a podcast Americanfamilyfarmershow
dot com wherever you get your podcasts Americanfamilyfarmershow dot com.
(06:20):
We're talking to Tim Gradert, who is a tax manager
Senior tax manager for Uncommon Farms and Up headquartered in Illinois.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
He travels around.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
The country to do tax returns. The tax environment is
what we're talking about, their tax services, the tax law
for agriculture. Should we assume that the issues are more
or less the same as to how the tax laws
change each year? And as you said, I think apptly
a few minutes ago, pay you're a fair share, but
(06:52):
not a dollar more. I think that's the practical. I
think there ought to be a message, and I know
that's not really your Bailey Wick, but maybe this is
good for your business to have it as complicated as
it is, but I don't think it's good for most
of us. Is there a way that we could come
up with a tax system that was good for people
(07:13):
preparing and also good for the farm because there's how
much time and effort and money does it take to
keep up with all these tax plans and changes and stuff.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Well, Doug, I don't want to get into politics, but
I guess the answer to that is that tax laws
are written by politicians, and politicians are known to be
people that have been successful in life and don't want
to pay more than their fair share, and they get
to write the rules.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
And then we have to interpret them. But I have
to believe that there are people like you.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Behind the scenes who are schooling them. We all were
talking about the nine hundred page a bill that took
eighteen hours to read into the right record in the
Senate this past week, and how ridiculous all of that
stuff is. So, but people like you have to know
what are in those bills right in order to understand
how they apply. And one of the things I was
(08:13):
told by my tax person many years ago, who sort
of smiled when he said it, Yep, they adapt all
these changes, and there are about one thousand tax accountants
around the country who, before the ink dries on the page,
have figured out how to get.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Around those rules.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Do you agree with that assessment that the rules are
made to be broken or you figure a way around them?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yeah, I would agree that interpreting the rules is probably
the main goal of the tax accountant to make sure
that the rules are interpreted to favor their clientele, and
of course, the biggest issue that you have to fight
is you interpret the rules and this us with your client.
Here is what the rural states, and the client of
(09:03):
course says, well, maybe it states this, but I want
to do this. Can I do this and still be
under the rules? And sometimes our hardest job is to
educate the farmer that you know, there's a line that
you don't cross. Our goal is to stand right at
that line and look over, but we don't want to
step over it. So sometimes we have to say, hey,
wait a minute, I think you need to take a
(09:24):
step back. I think you've gone a step too far
trying to interpret what this law is meant to do.
So sometimes that's the most difficult job that I have.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
What about some of the policies, the things that the
farmer needs to know in order to give you the
information that you need.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Is there software?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
What is there that you have put together or either
programs that you can get from the various tax consultancies
which would help farmers prepare themselves for you.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Well, I guess I can kind of toot our own
horn here. We have our our own proprietary software that
we offer to farmers along with the full staff that
can give them technical support on how to use the software.
They can review the entries for them to make sure
that the numbers are accurate when they're done, or it
(10:17):
can even go so far as to do the entries
for them. Or we go totally full service and say, hey,
just send us your bills, send us copies of your deposits,
and we will write the checks for you, and we
will do the entries as we write the checks and
do the full service accounting for you. So you do
offer that service.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, how often do people take ad manager it that way?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
They just want to wash their hands and they trust
you or firms like yours to do the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
I would say we have quite a few of our
larger farmers that that go that route just because they
know what they know and they know that their success
is not because they are expert accountants. Their success is
because they know agriculture and know how to farm. So
sometimes your best bet is to hire the smartest person
(11:07):
in the room to do the job you don't know
how to do. So that's kind of what we offer.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
So this is the not the good old days when
mom pot cattle would sit around the table and the
dad does all the work, the heavy work outside, and
mom keeps the books.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
How often is that still the case?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
More and more farms, as I've highlighted over the last
couple of years, are.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Being run by women. And I don't mean to.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Sort of stick my finger into a hole a pile
of mud, but I think that in essence, women are
more running farms today than has ever been the case
before and where the tradition was. As I just explained,
the guys do the work outside and the women do
the work inside. That's got to be going by the wayside,
(11:56):
isn't it. It is.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
There's still some are operations out there that do it
that way, but more and more it's become more of
a true partnership between the husband and the wife for
all all the activities are shared, if not equally, closer
to equally than they were thirty forty fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Well, it's really kind of an interesting reality, isn't it
When you look. I just find the changes that are
coming along to be very positive frankly, and I think
you're encouraging it to a certain extent. Uncommon Farms your
website is uncommonfarms dot com, is it not?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I'm looking yes at common farms dot com.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah, check that out and find out what's going on
and how you can be helped by the folks at
uncommon Farms here speaking of help my sixty second way
to focus you on your weight and the program that
is put together by Calitrin. Each day there are new
people that go to top loss dot com, which is
a website for Caltron to figure out a way to
(13:03):
lose weight, the simple way, the non.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Toxic way, and to keep it off.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
If you've decided you're going to go down the drug route,
that's okay. Caltron works with it. The thing that drugs
can't do is to you know at first, you don't
know what down the road. They can tell you it's
not going to harm you, but you don't really know
what the effect is going to be in ten or
twenty years on your body. But that's okay if you
want to go on the program. I don't discourage people
(13:28):
from doing that. I just know that if you don't
stay on the product, you're going to not continue to
lose weight. And that's where Caltron comes in. Keep the
weight off once you worked hard to get rid of it,
and the non toxicity of this program makes it the
number one way to really safely lose weight because you'll
know what the impact is down the road. Toploss dot
(13:50):
Com is the website, and I send you there each
time we're talking about this to focus on the special
of the weekend, and right now you can say fifty
percent off right now today on caltron as you look
at the huge success rate it has looking.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Around their website.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
By the way, you can either use capsules or powder
with the Calidron, which rebuilds lean muscle tissue, boost your metabolism,
promotes healing as you lose the weight. Please set your
own goals. Talk to a consultant because they're there. They
help you out at toplass dot com and take advantage
of the special right now two for the price of one.
(14:31):
Use the discount code Doug Dug on all orders over
fifty bucks and you'll also get free shipping that's at
toplaws dot com for Caltron.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Running a farm is a gift. I think it is.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I think the ability I've been around cows all my life.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
We're talking with Tim.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Grader, who's the senior tax manager for Uncommon Farms of
their headquarters in Illinois, but I think Brighton, Illinois is
where their headquarters are. If you're a family farmer and
you're trying to have long term sustainability, as you're trying
to make your way through the rules and regulations to
be efficient in your operation, to optimize your finances, to
(15:14):
have sound insurance programs for example, and you.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Know the big issue.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
I think today every one of the farm trades that
I look at, three or four of them I look
at every day. Tim there's always, always, always an issue
with generational change, like when you get to be my
age and you want to hand the farm down. I'm
talking to my two children who we're working on things
right now as a matter of fact. So I would
(15:40):
imagine if you're a tax person, and then you know
what the tax ramifications are, the death tax, which is
one of the most ungodly, most ridiculous, asinine things in
the arsenal of trying to screw the farmer and everybody
else in this country. How do you work with with
that introduction?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
How do you work with people to save the farms?
Speaker 4 (16:05):
As one of our clients had mentioned a few weeks ago,
everything we do to help them means nothing. If in
the end, they can't pass it on to somebody else.
So that's probably the most important aspect of what we
do for our clientele is number one to make sure
they're successful, but number two to make sure that that
(16:27):
success can get passed on to somebody else. So we
really have been trying to concentrate on secession planning. What
can we do to help. Obviously, everybody's different, everybody has
different goals. Some people it's Okay, I've got one son,
he's going to farm. He's going to get the farm.
(16:49):
Fear and simple, no questions asked, Let's make it happen.
Other people it's like, Okay, I've got a son that
wants to farm. I get another son that's a little
younger that we just don't know what he wants. We've
got two daughters that have married farmers. You know, they
are farming. How do we separate what we've gotten what
they're they've gotten into. And and maybe we've got a
(17:13):
daughter that's that's moved off to the big city and
and not ever planned on coming back, but you know
she she deserves some of this inheritance too. So it
gets difficult at times, but but basically, what it amounts
to is we need to figure out what is the
ultimate goal, who wants what, and how can we make
it happen. We We've got somebody on staff that that
(17:34):
is their specialty, Mike Downey, which you may may have
heard of him. He's he writes several articles for national
publications and he's done his work for quite a few years.
He's he's done a wonderful job with a lot of
our clients with with getting a plan in place, making
sure that we're passing the farm onto the next generation
(17:57):
without having to give half of it away to the
government in the process.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
It's fair to maximize deductions and credits. You must be
in compliance empowered to do things the right way, but
there's no excuse for the government being able to take away.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
The farm that you work so hard for.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
So perhaps the best place for you to turn if
you have questions about this is to the website of
Uncommon Farms. It's pretty simple on uncommonfarms dot com. Tim
Gratert is their senior tax manager. Very helpful information here.
As we are interested in helping as many folks who
are on the farm stay on the farm as possible.
(18:39):
That's our mission here on the American Family Farmer. Thanks Tim,
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
The American Family Farmer podcast sponsored in part by Caldron.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Which is the safe
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Way for you to lose weight and keep it off
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.