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2007 Cow Calf Issue

About this special issue:

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, Joe Roybal Editor

Agriculture is often viewed as both a business and a lifestyle, a vocation where its practitioners generally consider themselves caretakers of the family...

Features

Passing it on

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, By Joe Roybal Editor

Most folks dream of being successful in life, and over the course of a lifetime such drive builds assets. For some, these assets are modest...

Estate tax repeal

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, By Joe Roybal Editor

Repeal of the estate tax, or death tax, as it's often termed by its detractors, has been long-championed by agricultural commodity and small-business...

Time to talk

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, By Alaina Burt Managing Editor

If your idea of communication is shouting at your wife (or kids) to close the gate, or when a son or daughter approaches you with We've got to talk, you...

Is life insurance really necessary?

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, By Burt Rutherford Senior Editor

You can look at life insurance as an estate management tool, or as a take-it-or-leave-it kind of proposition. And most estate-planning experts would just...

ABCs of corporations

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, By Clint Peck Contributing Editor

The type of agricultural business structure chosen will have many implications on the future of a farm/ranch business and on future generations...

Limited liability options

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, By Burt Rutherford Senior Editor

If your goal is to pass the ranch to subsequent generations, you might consider forming a limited liability structure. Emphasis on the That's because...

Trusts for transfer

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, By Burt Rutherford Senior Editor

Can you trust a trust to accomplish your estate-planning goals? Probably, says Roger McEowen, Iowa State University (ISU) Leonard Dolezal professor of...

Are you willing?

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, By Wes Ishmael Contributing Editor

Death. No one wants to talk about it, other than maybe joking around. Most of us especially hate talking about it with the folks we'll likely be inheriting...

A working LLC

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, Alaina Burt

Thirty years ago, Gary Sonstegard and his family began raising cattle near Montevideo, MN. In that time, they went from raising a few...

A family's battle

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, By Kindra Gordon

Ralph and Maxine Jones are evangelists for repeal of the federal estate tax, for good reason. Their family operation in Midland, SD, has been impacted...

Charitable arrangements

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, By Burt Rutherford Senior Editor

Every minute of every day, we lose two acres of agricultural land to development. That's one reason groups ranging from the American Farmland Trust...

Communication is key

Feb 15, 2007 12:00 PM, By Burt Rutherford Senior Editor

While many family-owned businesses have a long-term objective of passing the business on to the next generation, in reality only about 30% of all family-owned...