Oneida, NY (WIBX) - Congressman Richard Hanna is co-sponsoring a bill with Vermont Congressman Peter Welch to ease unemployment tax issues for family farms.

The "Growing Small Farms Act of 2012" updates the tax code put in place more than twenty-five years ago.

Simply put, it changes the salary cap for exemption from federal unemployment taxes from $20,000 to $40,000 a year, significantly reducing the burden of paperwork for small-scale farmers.

Hanna appeared at the Regner Family's Quiet Meadows Farm in Oneida to announce the bill. which is supported by the New York Farm Bureau.

Congressman Hanna says that the bill will not only help small farms keep doing business in New York, but also help them "provide safe and healthy, locally-grown food to our neighbors."

The text of the bill calls for amending "[t]he Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase the quarterly wages paid threshhold for classifications as an agricultural labor employer for purposes of unemployment taxes."

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