The U.S. Treasury is cracking down on farmers who collect farm payment when their income exceeds payment limits.
Any farmer who accepts payment from the federal government must agree to allow U.S. Treasury to provide tax records for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Starting with the 2009 crop year, all farmer programs payment recipients must sign forms allowing the IRS to release this information.
In prior years the USDA has had trouble catching fraudulent claims because the records were not accessible. Last year 2,702 wealthy people collected over $49 million in government subsidies that had revenue over the limit, but the USDA could not see the names because the information was collected by GAO investigators that used private IRS records to find them.
“Once this verification system is fully operational, high-income individuals and entities will be identified by the USDA before farm program payments are actually disbursed to them,†Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.
The 2008 Farm Bill makes any recipient with a gross income of over $500,000 in the last three taxable years. Direct payments cannot be paid to any participant whose average adjusted gross farm income for the three-year period.
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Tags: IRS, program payments, usda, vilsack