USDA enhances integrity, defensibility of farm programs

Well this is good news. The USDA to be more careful about handing out farm-subs since a recent GAO Report indicated that they had misappropriated millions in the past, giving subs to wealthy farmers and ranchers not entitled or qualified to recieve them and in some cases cutting checks to DEAD FOLK!

Read more about that in the link below;
http://madcowhorses.blogspot.com/2009/04/usda-harvesting-cash-from-your-pockets.html

and now, on to the story;


The Daily Reporter

Posted Feb 15, 2010 @ 02:21 PM
East Lansing, Mich. —

Christine White, Executive Director of USDA’s Farm Service Agency in Michigan, recently announced that USDA is partnering with the Internal Revenue Service to reduce fraud in farm programs and streamlining payment limits for family farmers.

“This new USDA-IRS partnership is intended to help USDA participants meet the requirements in the 2008 Farm Bill” said White. “This new policy will protect USDA participants and ensure overall program integrity”

USDA has finalized a Memorandum of Understanding with the Internal Revenue Service to establish an electronic information exchange process for verifying compliance with the Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) provisions for farm programs. Written consent will be required from each producer or payment recipient for the tax review process. No actual tax data will be included in the report that IRS sends to USDA.

This agreement will ensure that payments are not issued to producers whose AGI exceeds certain limits. The limits set in the 2008 Farm Bill are $500,000 non-farm average AGI for commodity and disaster programs; $750,000 farm average AGI for direct payments; and $1 million non-farm average AGI for conservation programs. White also reminds producers the 2010 DCP/ACRE signup is underway and will end June 1.





http://www.thedailyreporter.com/newsnow/x1631832008/USDA-enhances-integrity-defensibility-of-farm