Tax Day Comes Early For Farmers, Ranchers Accountants Help Clients Meet Wednesday Deadline

Still waiting to start figuring your taxes? Not everyone has that luxury.

Farmers and ranchers are scrambling to meet a midnight Wednesday deadline to file their federal income tax returns or risk paying a penalty.

“Our CPAs are frantically doing tax returns right now to beat the deadline,” farm consultant Keith Townsend said Monday from the offices of LeMasters & Daniels, a Spokane accounting firm specializing in agriculture.

For many farmers, April 15 is a faraway dream. March 1 is their annual day of agony.

The deadline applies to full-time farmers who earn two-thirds of their annual income off the farm, and did not make estimated quarterly tax payments to the Internal Revenue Service throughout 1994.

Those who did make quarterly payments have until the April deadline to file a final, adjusted return, according to IRS officials in Seattle.

Any self-employed worker can make estimated quarterly taxes to spread the tax burden over the year. But only farmers and commercial fishermen are permitted to postpone all income tax payments until after the end of the year.

The IRS said it makes the exception for farmers because of the seasonal nature of agriculture, which often results in wide swings in farm income. Officials did not know how many farmers wait until March 1 to file returns.

Producers who have incorporated their farms will escape the early deadline, but not by much. The filing deadline for corporations, with a fiscal year ended Dec. 31, is March 15.

Everyone else must file by April 17 this year, because April 15 falls on Saturday.