Originally Posted by RockyBoy

I own one company and 50% of another. My LLC that I own 50% of is the family farm. (My dad owns the other half). I've had three accountants look over my taxes to try and manage them. After three years of losses the IRS can come in and designate your business as a hobby if it is not generating a profit. This will limit your deductions to something like $2000 per year. They usually won't bother you until 5 years. So this may work for a few years, but eventually you have to make money.

Here is a good article that explains the basics of using a farm for tax purposes.

It's Tax Time! How to Navigate the Tricky World of Farm Taxes - Hobby Farms


The only real way to have long term tax relief is to not get paid via W-2 wages like the really wealthy people do. With the current tax code it gets tough to hide money every year with a side business when all that business is doing is creating expenses to offset your W-2 wages.

Maybe I just have bad accountants, but side business won't help you hide income for very many years. My problem is both my business are doing great so now I've got that to deal with. 1st world problems.....it's tough I tell ya.