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GOT MILK?

March 07, 2005

The tax law still pays homage to agriculture with a provision that exempts "in-kind" payments to farm workers from employment taxes. This was handy back when you gave old Cletus a few chickens for helping out with the threshing, but it is an anachronism now. Still, it invites abuse, so it occasionally makes the news:

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department announced today that it has sued Michael Lee Yohe, of Newberry Springs, California, and Michael A. Thompson, of Filer, Idaho, seeking to bar an allegedly fraudulent employment tax scheme affecting more than 50 dairy farms and more than 1,100 farm employees in four western states. The complaint, filed Friday in Boise with the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, describes the defendants’ actions as a “brazen tax-evasion scheme” that has caused more than $12 million in employment and income tax losses.

Apparently these gentlemen marketed a scheme where they would help dairy farmers disguise their cash payments to farmhands as payments in milk. Sure, that ought to work; it's hard to tell milk from cash, right.

It doesn't work for hogs, either.

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