Des Moines, Iowa — The Iowa House has voted to extend a state tax break for SOME Iowans who own livestock and get at least half of their annual income from farming.
It’s a capital gains tax break for the sale of dairy cattle, work horses and racing horses as well as livestock — like cows and bulls and sows and boars — used for breeding. The tax break expired at the end of 2022. If it isn’t revived, officials estimate the state will collect two-and-half MILLION dollars in capital gains this year from cattle and horse sales. Representative Derek Wulf and his wife have a cow-calf operation on a third-generation family farm near Hudson. Wulf says the capital gains tax break for livestock was established in the late 1990s.
The repeal of this capital gains cut for some livestock sales was part of a wide-ranging tax bill that became law in 2018. The House bill that would restore the tax break is now under consideration in the Senate.
