Estate Planning Tools for Ranchers and Farmers

Estate Planning Tools

As American farmers and ranchers age, they face the dilemma of how to pass on their life’s work. They can pass on a working business or they can sell off the land, equipment, livestock and facilities piecemeal. Coloring this basic decision are considerations of retirement income, long-term care payments, interests of heirs, and tax consequences. Every farmer and rancher faces these inevitable decisions, yet an Iowa study found that two-thirds of farmers over age 65 had done little or no planning for retirement.

The documents we provide in this Risk Management Workshop Series are an attempt to help farmers and ranchers become better consumers of estate planning tools. They provide basic information on retirement planning and farm or ranch transfer to explain processes that have grown in complexity. Since most of us begin or retire only once, it’s helpful to learn from advisors who have observed many stages of the process. These documents arose from the experiences of financial and legal counselors who have worked through these issues with hundreds of farm families in Nebraska.

Reports available in the series:

Ownership Structures for Your Farm or Ranch

Piercing the Corporate Veil: How Limited Is the Liability of Doing Business as a Corporation?

Long Term Care

Medicaid: Planning for Long-Term Care in the Farm & Ranch Context

post a question or comment here or contact John Crabtree, johnc@cfra.org

Center for Rural Affairs
Values. Worth. Action.