By Blake Haas

BLOOMINGTON – The Illinois Farm Bureau does not support a new farm inheritance tax set forth by the Biden Administration.

According to IFB President Richard Guebert, some farmers could have to sell off land to make the difference under the new proposal, hurting farmers inheriting the land.

“Well, let’s go back a number of years that our organization in particular, along with many many other small business owners and landowners all around the country, fought real hard to get the inheritance tax laws where they are today. And the exemptions that are allowable for family farm operations to be passed along to the next generations like they have been for years that you don’t have to sell off a piece of the farm to pay the inheritance tax, and that is really important to our members.”

Under the proposal, the administration would tax the purchase price of the farm to what the value is today.

“Sometimes that can be quite high,” Guebert told WJBC’s, Marc Strauss. “I’ll just use an example – I bought some ground when I started farming for $800 an acre, and today it’s valued at $7,000 an acre, so I would have to pay taxes on that difference. That’s pretty expensive and costs a lot of money that we’ll have to come up with.

As farmers, we’re asset rich and cash poor, and we’d have to sell of some piece of property to meet that obligation under the new administration’s proposal to pay for infrastructure or whatever down the road.”

Guebert said he’s had conversations with the representative’s across the state to tell the White House not to enforce the proposal.

“Absolutely devastating to the farming operation and to the folks that have worked the land, paid property taxes year after year on the local level. You’ll pay for that farm again, time and time again.”

Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].