Posted: | December 1, 2020 10:09 AM |
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From: | Representative Carl Walker Metzgar |
To: | All House members |
Subject: | Crop Insurance—Taxable Income |
In the near future, I intend to introduce legislation that will allow Pennsylvania farmers to defer income received from disaster-related crop insurance payments for one year, mirroring existing federal law. As I’m sure you all know, farmers have been hard hit in recent years by difficult economic circumstances, and the losses related to our ongoing COVID-19 crisis are well documented. What has not gotten attention in recent months, however, is drought conditions in certain parts of the state will likely result in farmers needing to make crop insurance claims on those crops. When crop insurance payments are received as the result of drought, flooding and other natural disasters, federal law affords farmers with the ability to defer the income on their federal income tax filings for one year, but unfortunately, our state law does not provide this flexibility. By providing farmers with the ability to defer income received from crop insurance payments for one year, not only will we be providing consistency with federal law, but more importantly, we will be providing our farmers with added flexibility to address an array of financial challenges they may face. I would respectfully ask for your consideration to join me in co-sponsoring this important legislation. |
Introduced as HB1006