Income From Cooperatives

If you buy farm supplies through a cooperative, you may receive income from the cooperative in the form of patronage dividends. If you sell your farm products through a cooperative, you may receive either patronage dividends or a per-unit retain certificate, explained later, from the cooperative.

Form 1099-PATR. The cooperative will report the income to you on Form 1099-PATR or a similar form and send a copy to the IRS. Form 1099-PATR may also show an alternative minimum tax adjustment that you must include if you are required to file Form 6251, Alternative Minimum Tax--Individuals. For information on the alternative minimum tax, see chapter 14.

Patronage Dividends

You generally report patronage dividends as income on lines 5a and 5b of Schedule F for the tax year you receive them. They include the following items.

• Money paid as a patronage dividend.
• The stated dollar value of qualified written notices of allocation.
• The fair market value of other property.

Do not report as income any patronage dividend that is a nonqualified notice of allocation, that is for purchasing or selling capital assets or depreciable property, or that is for purchasing personal items.

If you cannot determine what the dividend is for, report it as ordinary income.

Qualified written notice of allocation. If you receive a qualified written notice of allocation as part of a patronage dividend, you must generally include its stated dollar value in your income in the year you receive it. A written notice of allocation is qualified if at least 20% of the patronage dividend is paid in money or by qualified check and either of the following conditions is met.

1. The notice must be redeemable in cash for at least 90 days after it is issued, and you must have received a written notice of your right of redemption at the same time as the written notice of allocation.
2. You must have agreed to include the stated dollar value in income in the year you receive the notice by doing one of the following.
   1. Signing and giving a written agreement to the cooperative.
   2. Getting or keeping membership in the cooperative after it adopted a bylaw providing that membership constitutes agreement. The cooperative must notify you in writing of this bylaw and give you a copy.
   3. Endorsing and cashing a qualified check paid as part of the same patronage dividend. You must cash the check by the 90th day after the close of the payment period for the cooperative's tax year for which the patronage dividend was paid.

Qualified check. A qualified check is any instrument that is redeemable in money and meets both of the following requirements.

1. It is part of a patronage dividend that also includes a qualified written notice of allocation for which you met condition (2)(c), above.
2. It is imprinted with a statement that endorsing and cashing it constitutes the payee's consent to include in income the stated dollar value of any written notices of allocation paid as part of the same patronage dividend.

Loss on redemption. You can deduct in Part II of Schedule F any loss incurred on the redemption of a qualified written notice of allocation you received in the ordinary course of your farming business. The loss is the difference between the stated dollar amount of the qualified written notice you included in income and the amount you received when you redeemed it.

Nonqualified notice of allocation. Do not include the stated dollar value of any nonqualified notice of allocation in income when you receive it. Your basis in the notice is zero. You must include in income for the tax year of disposition any amount you receive from its sale, redemption, or other disposition. Report that amount, up to the stated dollar value of the notice, as ordinary income in Part I of Schedule F. However, do not include that amount in your income if the notice resulted from purchasing or selling capital assets or depreciable property or from purchasing personal items, as explained in the following discussions.

If the amount you receive is more than the stated dollar value of the notice, report the excess as the type of income it represents. For example, if it represents interest income, report it on your return as interest.

Purchasing or selling capital assets or depreciable property. Do not include in income patronage dividends from the purchase of capital assets or depreciable property used in your business. You must, however, reduce the basis of these assets by the dividends. This reduction is taken into account as of the first day of the tax year in which the dividends are received. If the dividends are more than your unrecovered basis, include the difference as ordinary income on Schedule F for the tax year you receive them. Include all these dividends on line 5a of Schedule F, but include only the taxable part on line 5b.

This rule and the exceptions explained later also apply to amounts you receive from the sale, redemption, or other disposition of a nonqualified notice of allocation that resulted from purchasing or selling capital assets or depreciable property.

Example. On July 1, 1999, Mr. Brown, a patron of a cooperative association, bought a machine for his dairy farm business from the association for $2,900. The machine has a life of 7 years under MACRS (as provided in the Table of Class Lives and Recovery Periods in Appendix B of Publication 946). Mr. Brown files his return on a calendar year basis. For 1999, he claimed a depreciation deduction of $311, using the 10.71% depreciation rate from the 150% declining balance, half-year convention table (shown in Table A-14 in Appendix A of Publication 946). On July 1, 2000, the cooperative association paid Mr. Brown a $300 cash patronage dividend for his purchase of the machine. Mr. Brown adjusts the basis of the machine and figures his depreciation deduction for 2000 (and later years) as follows.

Exceptions. If the dividends are for purchasing or selling capital assets or depreciable property you did not own at any time during the year you received the dividends, you must include them as ordinary income on Schedule F unless one of the following rules applies.

• If the dividends relate to a capital asset you held for more than 1 year for which a loss was or would have been deductible, treat them as gain from the sale or exchange of a capital asset held for more than 1 year.
• If the dividends relate to a capital asset for which a loss was not or would not have been deductible, do not report them as income (ordinary or capital gain).

If the dividends are for selling capital assets or depreciable property during the year you received the dividends, treat them as an additional amount received on the sale.

Personal purchases. Omit from the taxable amount of patronage dividends on line 5b of Schedule F any dividends from buying personal, living, or family items, such as supplies, equipment, or services not related to the production of farm income. This rule also applies to amounts you receive from the sale, redemption, or other disposition of a nonqualified written notice of allocation resulting from these purchases.

Per-Unit Retain Certificates

A per-unit retain certificate is any written notice that shows the stated dollar amount of a per-unit retain allocation made to you by the cooperative. A per-unit retain allocation is an amount paid to patrons for products sold for them that is fixed without regard to the net earnings of the cooperative. These allocations can be paid in money, other property, or qualified certificates.

Per-unit retain certificates issued by a cooperative generally receive the same tax treatment as patronage dividends, discussed earlier.

Qualified certificates. Qualified per-unit retain certificates are those issued to patrons who have agreed to include the stated dollar amount of these certificates in income in the year of receipt. The agreement may be made in writing or by getting or keeping membership in a cooperative whose bylaws or charter state that membership constitutes agreement. If you receive qualified per-unit retain certificates, include the stated dollar amount of the certificates in income in Part I of Schedule F for the tax year you receive them.

Nonqualified certificates. Do not include the stated dollar value of a nonqualified certificate in income when you receive it. Your basis in the certificate is zero. You must include in income any amount you receive from its sale, redemption, or other disposition. Report the amount you receive from the disposition as ordinary income in Part I of Schedule F for the tax year of disposition.

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