(a) Yes. (b) No.

(a) Yes.

Being a farmer, in my opinion, means you are doing something “real” for our economy. Real means taxes.

In comparison, my profession moves around a lot of numbers and paper. Underlying that statement that farming is real are also some tax rules that honour and favour farming with tax savings and tax deferral. The Canadian economy was once an agrarian economy. Meaning that we made our wealth growing and selling. Even our largest resources have links to the agrarian economy. Forests are seasonal like crops as they are harvested in the summer.

The key tax advantage or disadvantage to farming versus other businesses is the treatment of cash flow versus profit. Farming is a business where your whole profits can literally disappear for a year if you have bad weather. Our tax system recognizes that and tries to compensate by smoothing income. Income losses can be moved around between years and subsidies to offset losses can often also be moved.

The object is to smooth income and thus tax burden.