Farm and ranch business succession and estate planning will be the focus of workshops in St. Paul and Beatrice. The free workshops will be from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the St. Paul Civic Center Feb. 23 and the Extension Office at the Gage County Fairgrounds March 1.

Presenting the workshop are Joe Hawbaker, agricultural law attorney with the Hawbaker Law Office in Omaha, and Dave Goeller, deputy director, Northeast Center for Risk Management Education, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The workshop will include information on beginning farmer programs that can aid in succession planning as will cover the following topics:

• stages of succession planning, contribution and compensation, balancing the interests of on-farm and off-farm heirs;
• the importance of communication, setting goals, assessing feasibility, and balancing intergenerational expectations and needs;
• beginning farmer loan and tax credit programs;
• the use of trusts, wills, life estate deeds and business entities (such as the limited liability company) in family estate and business succession planning;
• legal tools for balancing the interests of successors and off-farm heirs; asset protection;
• taxation (federal transfer taxes, Nebraska inheritance tax, basis adjustment), and
• essential estate documents.

This is the next in the Farm Success Series sponsored by the Nebraska Beginning Farmer and Rancher Network. Another workshop will be held March 1 in Beatrice.

Registration

For more information or to register, call the Rural Response Hotline at 800-464-0258.

This workshop is made possible by the Nebraska Network for Beginning Farmers & Ranchers, the Farm and Ranch Project of Legal Aid of Nebraska, USDA-FSA, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture’s Next Gen, Nebraska Farmers Union Foundation, UNL Extension in Howard County, Homestead Bank, Citizens Bank, and Heritage Bank.