On June 16, 2021, the PA House of Representatives voted on HB 1006 (Metzgar) to allow Pennsylvania farmers to defer income received from disaster-related crop insurance payments for one year, mirroring existing federal law.
Farmers have been hard hit in recent years by difficult economic circumstances, and the losses related to the COVID-19 crisis are well documented. Additionally, drought conditions in certain parts of the state will likely result in farmers needing to make crop insurance claims on their crops. When crop insurance payments are received as the result of drought, flooding and other natural disasters, federal law affords farmers with the ability to defer the income on their federal income tax filings for one year, but unfortunately, our state law does not provide this flexibility.
By providing farmers with the ability to defer income received from crop insurance payments for one year, not only will Pennsylvania be providing consistency with federal law, but more importantly, the Commonwealth will be providing our farmers with added flexibility to address an array of financial challenges they may face.
The legislation will now be presented to the PA Senate for consideration. If approved, the governor would need to sign the legislation into law before our farmers would be able to utilize this flexibility.