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Being a better boss primarily requires us to communicate with our employees effectively. Recognizing that the leader and the led are only two portions of the puzzle, the message and the goal must also be considered when developing an effective communication relationship with employees. If you don’t communicate the goal, the led will substitute their own goal and when the goals don’t match, conflict results.

For example, during the spring, just prior to planting, your employee reports to work a 6 AM as normal, expecting to be gone by 2 PM, as per normal arrangement. The employee tells her husband to plan her to be home to prepare their own equipment for spring planting. However, you have decided to move equipment to your equipment to the field in hopes of calibrating all the electronics so that you can start when the crop insurance planting window opens up. Your goal is to make sure that on the first available day you are running hard, and you view this prep day as critical to get it all done, regardless of time spent. As mid afternoon approaches, two very different sets of expectations are brewing, which could have been avoided by cluing the employee in at the start of the day or beginning of the week on the things you, the employer, wanted accomplished.

The IRS has cooked up a special mix of fun to generate more revenue. First, they have reduced accelerated depreciation limits to $25,000 and Second, have tightened their position on what is a repair (which is a current year expense and what is a capital improvement which has to be deducted over time). It is enough to drive you to drink, which is why it is referred to as the BAR test. (Betterment, adaption and restoration). If the fix does any of those things, it needs to be depreciated out slowly instead in the year incurred. Betterment = fixes a condition or defect that existed before the purchase of the property, is  a material addition to the property; or increases the property’s productivity, efficiency, strength, etc. Adaption =a change a new or different use if   of property to a use from what you bought the property for Restoration. =  puts the property back in working order from non function or rebuilds the property to a like new condition or replaces a major component or structure of the property.

Oil Changes, filter changes and the like which happen more than once during the life span of the item are still allowed as current year expenses.
Don’t be surprised if your tax preparer asks more questions this year about your repair category. It would appear that with the recent passage of a higher accelerated expense provision, this issue may not be as critical, as a tax payer maybe able to elect to treat what would be BAR repairs as accelerated expenses.

Who wins with crop insurance?

The company’s selling the policies sure do. According to a recent white paper: ‘As a result of the significant subsidies crop insurance corporations receive, they consistently generate profits that are considered far above the reasonable rate of return as calculated by economic experts. Between 1989 and 2009, crop insurance companies averaged a 17% return on equity at a time when the ‘reasonable’ rate was under 13%, according to an analysis done for the USDA. In 2009 alone, crop insurers enjoyed an astounding 26% rate of return, more than double what was considered reasonable by the industry standard for that year.'”

Questions to Ask About Your Data Privacy Policy

Mapping via infrared spectrum at the one inch level on a field is technology that is already here. The foreign ag service has been using satellite images to predict competing countries yields for decades. That technology is getting cheaper and easier to acquire for private use. Tractors and combines are routinely in communication with GPS locators and mapping programs as farms become more technically advanced. The data that is captured can be used for many purposes.