When something like a severe drought or wildfire hits, tax planning usually isn’t the first priority—and it shouldn’t be. There’s a lot to deal with immediately. But fairly quickly, the financial side starts to matter, especially when livestock sales are involved.
What we see over and over is that the decisions made in those first few months—when to sell, how much to sell, whether to replace animals—end up having a long-term impact from a tax standpoint. The good news is, there are tools available. The challenge is knowing when they actually help and when they don’t.
The Two Livestock Deferral Options
One-Year Deferral
When livestock are sold because of weather-related conditions, there are two main tax provisions that come into play. They sound similar, but they really serve different purposes.
The first is the one-year deferral under §451(g). This is the more straightforward option. If you sell more livestock than you normally would because of a weather-related condition like drought, you can push the income from those extra sales into the following year.
There are a few requirements behind it. You need to be a cash-basis taxpayer, farming must be your primary business, and your area must be eligible for federal assistance. It’s important to note that the cattle don’t have to be in a county that has been declared a disaster area, but the impact of that disaster must be the reason you’re selling.
Source : unl.edu