Valuing Farm Financial Information

Participants were also asked if they use their farm records for tax purposes, enterprise
analysis, securing loans, evaluating farm performance, aiding in investment decisions, budget
preparation, and aiding in capital purchases. They were further asked if they use tax returns just
for storage, to measure farm performance, to manage taxable income, and to decide how much
income to transfer into family living expenses. Participants submitting bids of $75,000 and
greater tended to use records to evaluate farm performance and to aid in investment decisions
more than lower bidders (table 7). Additionally, 90% or more of participants with bids of
$75,000 and greater used their financial records for all specified purposes except enterprise
analysis and investment decisions. The no-bid participants all used records for tax purposes, but
as a whole were under utilizing records in comparison other participants. Table 7 also shows
that higher bidding participants tended to use their tax returns for more purposes other than
storage. Sixty-one percent of the participants who did not submit a bid price used their tax
records to measure farm performance. This result is not surprising since many of this group do
not use some of the more sophisticated methods of measuring farm performance (table 6) and
likely use tax returns as another measure of farm profitability.

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