FARMER'S TAX MANUAL 1943-44

by Wil-liam C. Clay Jr. '37. Doubleday, Doran &Company, Inc. Garden City, N. Y. 1943, 72 pages, $2.50.

For farmers unfamiliar with the formidable income tax blanks, this manual should prove to be a great aid,—almost indispensable in fact. The headache of a professional or salaried man in making out his income tax must be relatively mild compared with that of a farmer. So few farmers keep adequate records or know how properly to record income and outgo or to treat capital accounts of buildings and machinery that their difficulties are magnified several fold. This manual tells them not only how to treat such puzzling items as these but gives generous illustrations of how to fill out the necessary forms and how to treat both items of income and allowable deductions.

Harassed farmers must keep track not only of money income and money outgo but of butter, eggs and potatoes traded for groceries at the village store; they must know how to treat loans, gifts and that puzzling but important item of depreciation on buildings, machinery and live stock.

If a farmer is his own bookkeeper, he must spend many hours keeping the records straight, but the net result should be to give him a better picture than ever before of the condition of his business and of the profit or loss on his different farm operations. If he follows the instructions carefully he should be able to take advantage of many tax savings and thus reduce his tax burden while at the same time his reduced irritation in filling out the forms should make him a more willing taxpayer.