Tax Season Prep & Ranch Planning
Keep in mind changes brought about by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
September 28, 2026
Tackling the nuanced changes the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) brings to tax preparation and ranch planning will be essential in coming months. On this episode of the Angus at Work podcast, columnist Chelsea Good visits with Roger McEowen, professor of agricultural law and taxation at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kan., to discuss the bill, its tax implications and the role relationships play in planning for transition of the family business.
Focusing on the future
The contents of this extensive bill are important to understand for a multitude of reasons, but especially for its effects on transition and estate planning.
McEowen says one of the most rewarding roles he plays is fostering the future of family operations. At a recent meeting, an individual who had asked his help 25 years prior reintroduced himself recalling, “It was looking like we weren’t going to be able to do a successful intergenerational transfer.”
Ultimately, that wasn’t the case, thanks to some resources provided by McEowen. With the help of a team of advisors who pointed the family in the right direction, 25 years later that farm is flourishing.
Envisioning the future
It can be a slightly awkward conversation, Good admits, but asking what a family would like the operation to look like in 50 or 100 years can help direct the conversation in a positive direction.
McEowen goes slightly further, suggesting producers consider the big picture and what they would like their family business situation to be. Once those goals are set, transition planners can establish a path to reach them.
“That’s been my approach to teaching law students and undergraduates over the years. Let’s go to the back of the chapter first … Where are we going with this? We’ll talk about that for a bit, and then we’ll go back to the beginning and say, ‘OK, now let’s look at the rules that actually get us there,’” McEowen notes. “That’s the approach I think people should come at estate planning with.”
Changing tax implications
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a hefty bill; more than 900 pages, according to McEowen. The important thing, he says, is that the bill has a lot of tax provisions beneficial to farmers and ranchers.
“It’s almost frightening to think where we would be at economically — and for our ag producers specifically — if the bill had not passed,” McEowen notes. “We avoided a major tax increase for many, many people.”
Of particular importance, the OBBBA retained [the qualified business income deduction], which offers a 20% deduction on your business income if you’re not a C corporation. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Congress had permanently reduced the corporate tax to a flat 21% across the board from the graduated rate brackets that C corporations had to pay. The qualified business income deduction was the trade-off, and would have expired at the end of 2025 if it weren’t for the bill.
Another big win for farmers and ranchers facing intergeneration transition in the future? A healthy estate tax exemption, says McEowen.
“We got an estate tax exemption at $15 million and then adjusted for inflation starting next year. So that’s $30 million for a married couple. That would’ve been cut — basically — in half had the bill not passed,” he says, pointing out that if the Fall 2024 elections had shaken out differently, this would be a much different story. “We could [have been] looking at a $3.5 million exemption with only a $1 million basis step-up at death. That would have been devastating to small businesses, particularly farms and ranches.”
A few more high points include a new senior deduction that, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, removes social security tax for about 88% of recipients as well as the reinstatement of a 1986 tax act that allows for deducting interest on a personal car loan [or] a new vehicle, McEowen shares.
On the depreciation side of things, producers got a 100% bonus depreciation reinstated on a retroactive basis.
“We’ve got, in essence, a doubling of Section 179 depreciation. So the fast methods of depreciation are there,” says McEowen. “I think we’re already seeing the economy and businesses take these provisions into account when you look at some of the official government numbers and surveys that have been put out … I could go on and on, but I think our listeners get the point. This is a very, very significant bill with lots of economic-related provisions in it that are good for all taxpayers and good for agriculture in general.”
Editor’s note: The information above is summarized from the March 25, 2026, episode of Angus at Work.
Topics: Business , Management , Record Keeping
Publication: Angus Beef Bulletin
Issue: November 2026
Related Content
Current Angus Beef Bulletin
Our September issue focuses on the females of the herd and the records that validate them.
