EPA WITHDRAWS INTERPRETIVE RULE

 On March 25, 2014, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Army signed an interpretive rule titled, "U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of the Army Interpretive Rule Regarding the Applicability of Clean Water Act Section 404(f)(l)(A)."

Effective immediately, the agencies hereby withdraw this interpretive rule as Congress directed in Section 112 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriation Act, 2015 , Public Law No. 113-235.

The Memorandum of Understanding signed on March 24, 2014, by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U. S. Department of the Army and the U. S. Department of Agriculture, concerning the interpretive rule, is also hereby withdrawn.

Farm Bureau's analysis of how President Barack Obama's budget submission for fiscal year 2016 will affect agriculture is in the early stages. But a news release from House Budget Committee Chair Tom Price (R-Md.) sums up the less-than-ideal aspects of the submission that are already apparent: "a proposal that never balances and includes a $2.4 trillion spending increase, a $2.1 trillion tax increase and adds $8.5 trillion to the national debt."

A couple of areas of the budget request and how agriculture would be affected are highlighted below.

Taxes

• Raises the top capital gains tax rate to 28 percent from the current 23.8 percent rate. The 23.8 percent rate now includes the 3.8 percent Medicare surtax;

• Repeals stepped-up basis;

• Creates a new capital gains tax at death by treating inherited property as a transfer that would trigger the capital gains tax;

• Delays the tax for inherited small-family owned and operated businesses unless/until the assets are sold;

• Cuts the top corporate tax rate to 28 percent with a 25 percent effective rate for domestic manufacturing, but does not lower tax rates for sole proprietors, partnerships or subchapter-S corporations;

• Creates a threshold of $25 million for requiring farms and ranchers to shift to accrual accounting;

• Permanently extends section 179 small-business expensing at $500,000; and

•  Gives small businesses a permanent $1 million bonus depreciation.

Crop Insurance

• Some cutbacks on prevented planting provisions are included, saving $1.4 billion over ten years; and
• Subsidies are cut - including those to companies - by $14.6 billion over ten years.

The president's budget submission is only the first step in the annual federal budget process. It establishes a marker but has no real force or leverage in Congress. Congress will spend the coming months crafting its version of the budget.