Farm Service Agency Taxpayer Outreach Education and Technical Assistance (American Rescue Plan Assistance)

The American Rescue Plan Act 2021, H.R. 1319, signed into law on March 11, 2021, Section 1003 allocated funding to USDA for this work and leverages FSA’s cooperative agreement authority. This was followed by the August 16, 2022, Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Section 22006 of this law provided additional funding to provide relief for distressed borrowers with certain FSA direct and guaranteed loans and expedited assistance to agricultural operations at risk. Throughout the pandemic USDA has provided vital support to farmers and ranchers experiencing a variety of hardships from natural disasters to supply chain disruption. Many producers are not aware that receiving funds from USDA through activities such as an EQIP contract, disaster payments, and the pending debt relief legislation payments creates a tax liability for their farm business. Taxpayer education has been a longstanding issue in the agricultural community. USDA frequently works with historically underserved, beginning, and limited resource producers who lack access to legal and certified public accounting services or who are unfamiliar with agricultural accounting best practices. To address these issues the Farm Service Agency (FSA), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is partnering with cooperators to develop and deliver taxpayer education to producers and key stakeholders. These agreements will support the creation of educational ag tax resources for agricultural producers who receive USDA payments.