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Yes! While the movement is still young, great strides have been made. Read the wins (and work to do) below.

Objective: Achieve and Maintain Ag-Friendly Tax Policy

• Extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, provisions that help agriculture beyond 2025, including:

  • Preservation of federal transfer tax lifetime exemption amounts, indexed for inflation, and

  • Retention of step-up in basis under § 1014, and

  • Return to 100% bonus depreciation under § 168, and

  • Continued expanded application of § 179, and

  • Maintenance of the § 199A qualified business income deduction.

• Increase the aggregate limit allowed under § 2032A to $30 million, indexed for inflation.

Wins - Key TCJA provisions that were set to expire were made permanent via the “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed July 4, 2025.

• Increase to the Federal Transfer Tax Lifetime Exemption: The federal transfer tax lifetime exemption level was increased to $15 million per individual and $30 million for a married couple, indexed for inflation and made permanent.

  • Real world impact: If allowed to expire, the federal transfer tax lifetime exemption — commonly referred to as the “death tax” — would have dropped to $7 million per individual in 2026. The bill makes the higher exemption level of $15 million per individual, or $30 million (indexed for inflation) per married couple, permanent by removing the sunset provision. These levels are the same for gift and generation transfer tax.

  • Why it’s useful: Agricultural families often face complex succession planning. A permanent exemption helps preserve generational land and operations without triggering large tax bills. With the exemption locked in, individuals and advisors can make long-term decisions without fear of sudden policy reversals. Any future reduction would require new Congressional action, making changes less likely and more predictable.

• Protect Bonus Depreciation: The provision that enables operations to speed up the depreciation of qualifying purchases will return to 100%, preventing the drop to 20% if the bill had not passed. This enables essential investments in equipment and infrastructure without the burden of delayed tax benefits.

  • Real world impact: Bonus depreciation lets businesses, including ag operations, immediately deduct a large portion (or all) of the cost of qualifying property when it's placed in service — instead of spreading the deduction over several years. Qualifying property includes tangible items like machinery, equipment, vehicles, or breeding stock. Under previous tax provisions Bonus depreciation was being steadily decreased each year. In 2024 if you bought $100,000 in bred heifers, you could deduct $60,000 immediately under bonus depreciation. The recently-passed bill permanently restored 100% bonus depreciation for qualified property placed in service after January 19, 2025.

  • Why it’s useful: Bonus depreciation improves cash flow, reduces taxable income, and can be especially helpful for startup and expanding operations. The permanence also provides producers with important tax policy stability.

• Retain Step-Up in Basis: When someone passes away, their assets — like land, equipment, or investments — are revalued to their fair market value on the date of death. This is known as a step-up in basis. It reflects what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller in an arm’s-length transaction. The recent bill protected step-up in basis preventing unnecessary capital gains tax on estates.

  • Real world impact: Before death, an asset’s basis is typically what the owner paid for it, possibly reduced by depreciation. After death, the asset’s basis is “stepped up” to its current market value. If heirs sell the asset, they’re only taxed on the gain above the stepped-up value, not the original purchase price.

  • Why it’s useful: This rule is especially important for farmers and ranchers as they often hold land for decades, and depreciation lowers the basis. Heirs may sell or consolidate land — not necessarily to exit the business, but to improve operations. Without step-up in basis, heirs could face massive tax bills that force them to sell land just to pay taxes.

• Increase of Expensing Limit under Section 179: This provision allows businesses to immediately expense the cost of qualifying equipment and property rather than depreciating it over time.

  • Real world impact This is especially valuable for farmers, ranchers, and small businesses investing in machinery, vehicles, or software. With the recent bill, the maximum deduction has increased to $2.5 million (up from $1 million), and the phase-out threshold now begins at $4 million in total equipment purchases. Once purchases exceed $4 million, the deduction is reduced dollar-for-dollar and phases out completely at $6.5 million.

  • Why it’s useful: This expansion helps more operations benefit from immediate write-offs, improving cash flow and encouraging reinvestment.

• Reduction of Qualified Business Income under section 199A: Section 199A of the tax code provides a 20% deduction for qualified business income (QBI) earned by pass-through entities — such as sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations.

  • Real world impact: The Section 199A deduction allows many farmers and ranchers to exclude up to 20% of their qualified business income from federal taxes, which can result in substantial savings. For operations structured as sole proprietorships, partnerships or S corporations — common setups in agriculture — this deduction offers a meaningful financial buffer, especially in years with strong income or tight margins.

  • Why it’s useful: By making this deduction permanent, agricultural producers gain long-term stability in tax planning. They can more confidently invest in equipment, expand operations and plan for generational transitions without worrying about sudden tax code changes. It supports continuity, growth and financial resilience in rural economies that depend on family-run ag.

Looking Ahead: The HERITAGE Act

• Section 2032A allows family-owned farms and ranches to be valued for estate tax purposes based on their actual agricultural use, rather than their highest and best use (e.g., development or recreational value). This can significantly reduce the taxable value of land — but only up to a capped amount.

  • How it works today: As of 2025, the maximum reduction allowed under 2032A is about $1.3 million, indexed for inflation. So even if a ranch’s ag-use value is $10 million and its market value is $50 million, the estate can only reduce its taxable value to $48.7 million, not the full $10 million ag-use value. That limited reduction still leaves a large estate tax liability.

  • The HERITAGE Act: Introduced by Sen. Hyde-Smith, this bill would amend section 2032A to raise the special-use valuation cap to $15M, protecting modern ag estates from estate tax pressures.

  • Why it would be useful: If Congress increases the 2032A cap to $15 million, for the same example as above, the estate could reduce the $50 million market value to $35 million. With a $30 million estate tax exemption, only $5 million would be taxable. At a 40% estate tax rate, that’s $2 million in tax, compared to $7.48 million under the current cap — a savings of over $5 million. This change could mean the difference between keeping the ranch in the family or selling off land to pay estate taxes. It would better reflect the realities of modern ag land values and support generational continuity in farming and ranching.

Objective: Make Risk Management Tools More Effective

• Increase the Livestock Risk Protection subsidy level, and

• Allow Livestock Risk Protection coverage to start the day price risk is assumed, and

• Create or improve mechanisms for industry input and oversight of risk management tools that will make them more attractive to producers.

Wins: Recent updates to the USDA’s Livestock Risk Protection, or LRP, program directly support the goal of making risk management tools more effective for producers:

• Increased subsidy levels - Subsidy rates now range from 35% to 55%, depending on coverage level and livestock type. Increased premium subsidies make risk protection more accessible to a broader range of producers, especially smaller operations.

• Coverage starting when price risk is assumed - Forward contract coverage is now allowed, meaning producers can insure price risk on livestock before they physically possess them. This closes critical timing gaps in protection.

• New coverage options - Additions like unborn calf coverage, cull dairy cow coverage, and drought-based hardship exemptions show the program is expanding to meet real, on-the-ground needs.

• Improved industry input and oversight - Many of the recent updates were driven by producer feedback and reflect a more responsive and collaborative approach between USDA’s Risk Management Agency, or RMA, and the livestock industry.

Looking Ahead: Continued work with RMA and key stakeholders in the LRP space to create a pipeline for real-time producer feedback to continue tailoring the program to the needs of users.

Objective: Improve Access to Labor

• Remove the seasonality component from H-2 programs, and

• Create an optimized and efficient process for workers in good standing to return to the same employer year after year, and

• Redefine “agricultural employer” to expand its scope for purposes of H-2A programs to include more employers essential to agricultural production in the United States

Looking Ahead: Workforce Modernization Act

• Introduced by Reps. Dan Newhouse and Zoe Lofgren, this bill would reform the H-2A visa program to ensure a reliable, legal workforce for agricultural producers.

  • Removes the seasonality component of the H-2A program by:

    • Making the H-2A program available for year-round agricultural work with 3-year H-2A visas

    • Providing a process for farm workers to seek Certified Agricultural Worker status — a temporary status, which can be renewed indefinitely, for those who have worked at least 180 days in agriculture over the last 2 years.

    • Establishing an electronic platform streamlining the process to create a single point of access for the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Labor and state workforce agencies to concurrently perform their responsibilities for approvals.

Objective: Increase Flexibility for Livestock Haulers

• Exempt livestock haulers from hours-of-service rules, and

• Permanently exempt livestock haulers from the electronic logging device mandate, and

• Support the state and federal adoption of increased load capacity limits.

Looking Ahead: The HELP Act

• Introduced by Rep. Jeff Hurd, this bill supports livestock haulers by protecting drivers from burdensome hours-of-service and electronic logging device mandates.

The Objective: Create Support for Young and Emerging Livestock Producers

• Reform USDA programs to raise limits on guaranteed loan programs, streamline the lending process, and expand eligibility criteria.

• Create tax credits or incentives for leasing or selling land to, and providing capital to, younger or emerging livestock producers, including elimination of capital gains, reduced financing costs and access to loans.

• Create front-loaded tax relief for buyers purchasing land for use in livestock production.

• Establish programs and educational programming to cultivate interest in young people to pursue careers in livestock production. Incentivize livestock producers and others, including those in academia, business and government, to mentor young or emerging livestock producers and support new entrants into the industry. Develop technologies targeted at increasing efficiency in livestock production.

We fully respect your decision to step away from the coalition. If you previously signed on but no longer align with the five objectives of the Common Ground Coalition, you may request to have your name removed.

To do so, simply email info@commongroundcoalition.net with a brief request to be removed. You will also be unsubscribed from future communications.