Do You Have To Pay Sales Tax on Your Chicken Feed?

[Horseshoe Hens]

UPDATE: My tax-exempt status for Agriculture Production went through. So, to make sure, I bought a bag of chicken fee today and no tax was added on to the purchase. I know a ~10% sales tax on a single purchase is not very much, but it does add up over the year when you buy hundreds of dollars of feed.

BONUS: Now that I got my Agriculture Production exemption approved, I am also eligible to get other farm related products tax-exempt. I don't know what all is covered, but all I have to do is tell them at the register that I have a tax-exempt approval and anything, and everything, that is eligible will now be tax free at the checkout.

Thanks to everyone who replied to this posting. Hope it may have encouraged some of you to check into applying for a tax-exempt status as well. It might be worth the effort depending on your state laws. It was for me.

Hi there - I am also in PA and was just looking into this! Would you mind sending me any more details? It seems so confusing but I have been looking on the pa.gov farm info pages. Did you do this by yourself or get a tax accountant to help? I am talking to an accountant as well who is making the whole thing very complicated. They say the eggs are not taxable so therefore I can't get an exemption but I think they are talking about something else. I can send you my email if it is easier to chat that way. Thank you in advance for any help

 

[gtaus]

Hi there - I am also in PA and was just looking into this! Would you mind sending me any more details? It seems so confusing but I have been looking on the pa.gov farm info pages. Did you do this by yourself or get a tax accountant to help? I am talking to an accountant as well who is making the whole thing very complicated. They say the eggs are not taxable so therefore I can't get an exemption but I think they are talking about something else. I can send you my email if it is easier to chat that way. Thank you in advance for any help

No doubt an accountant would try to make it more complicated than it is. I will add a link to the MN Department of Revenue, Form ST3, Certificate of Exemption and a quick screenshot...

It took me less than 5 minutes to fill out the form, nobody else needed to help me. I just checked off the Type of Business as 02) Agricultural and the Reason for Exemption was J) Agriculture production. In my state, if you sell any of your eggs, you can qualify for the tax fee exemption on your backyard flock. We sell our excess eggs.

Over the course of a year, I probably save about $50 by not paying tax on chicken feed. So filling out the form was worth it to me. The worst they could say was that I did not qualify. The truth is that they (store management) want you to qualify so you buy your feed from them. The state just needs the paper filled out to press OK on the tax exemption. Not a big deal.

If I raised other animals for sale, that feed would also qualify as tax exempt. However, in my state, if you only raise animals for your personal consumption, you don't qualify for tax exempt status.

So, if you have a backyard flock of laying hens, make sure you sell some eggs to someone, at sometime, to qualify for the tax exempt status on feed.

I think I stated early on in the thread that the first manager I talked to asked me the wrong question. He asked if I ate our chickens. Well, eventually we cull our flock of laying hens and harvest the meat. But he incorrectly used that to tell me that I could not qualify for the tax exempt status on chicken feed. He was wrong!

What he should have asked was, do I sell any of our eggs? Yes, I do is the simple answer. If you sold any meat chickens, that would also count. That's all that is needed in my state to qualify for tax exemption.

Anyways, you can look at what is needed in my state and see if PA has something similar. Again, it took me less than 5 minutes to fill out the form and hand it back to my Fleet store manager who submitted it for me. I am now back in the system and tax exempt on feed.

Good luck. Each state is different. But it was certainly worth my time to buy my feed tax free.

 

[Horseshoe Hens]

No doubt an accountant would try to make it more complicated than it is. I will add a link to the MN Department of Revenue, Form ST3, Certificate of Exemption and a quick screenshot...


View attachment 4116709
It took me less than 5 minutes to fill out the form, nobody else needed to help me. I just checked off the Type of Business as 02) Agricultural and the Reason for Exemption was J) Agriculture production. In my state, if you sell any of your eggs, you can qualify for the tax fee exemption on your backyard flock. We sell our excess eggs.

Over the course of a year, I probably save about $50 by not paying tax on chicken feed. So filling out the form was worth it to me. The worst they could say was that I did not qualify. The truth is that they (store management) want you to qualify so you buy your feed from them. The state just needs the paper filled out to press OK on the tax exemption. Not a big deal.

If I raised other animals for sale, that feed would also qualify as tax exempt. However, in my state, if you only raise animals for your personal consumption, you don't qualify for tax exempt status.

So, if you have a backyard flock of laying hens, make sure you sell some eggs to someone, at sometime, to qualify for the tax exempt status on feed.

I think I stated early on in the thread that the first manager I talked to asked me the wrong question. He asked if I ate our chickens. Well, eventually we cull our flock of laying hens and harvest the meat. But he incorrectly used that to tell me that I could not qualify for the tax exempt status on chicken feed. He was wrong!

What he should have asked was, do I sell any of our eggs? Yes, I do is the simple answer. If you sold any meat chickens, that would also count. That's all that is needed in my state to qualify for tax exemption.

Anyways, you can look at what is needed in my state and see if PA has something similar. Again, it took me less than 5 minutes to fill out the form and hand it back to my Fleet store manager who submitted it for me. I am now back in the system and tax exempt on feed.

Good luck. Each state is different. But it was certainly worth my time to buy my feed tax free.

No doubt an accountant would try to make it more complicated than it is. I will add a link to the MN Department of Revenue, Form ST3, Certificate of Exemption and a quick screenshot...


View attachment 4116709
It took me less than 5 minutes to fill out the form, nobody else needed to help me. I just checked off the Type of Business as 02) Agricultural and the Reason for Exemption was J) Agriculture production. In my state, if you sell any of your eggs, you can qualify for the tax fee exemption on your backyard flock. We sell our excess eggs.

Over the course of a year, I probably save about $50 by not paying tax on chicken feed. So filling out the form was worth it to me. The worst they could say was that I did not qualify. The truth is that they (store management) want you to qualify so you buy your feed from them. The state just needs the paper filled out to press OK on the tax exemption. Not a big deal.

If I raised other animals for sale, that feed would also qualify as tax exempt. However, in my state, if you only raise animals for your personal consumption, you don't qualify for tax exempt status.

So, if you have a backyard flock of laying hens, make sure you sell some eggs to someone, at sometime, to qualify for the tax exempt status on feed.

I think I stated early on in the thread that the first manager I talked to asked me the wrong question. He asked if I ate our chickens. Well, eventually we cull our flock of laying hens and harvest the meat. But he incorrectly used that to tell me that I could not qualify for the tax exempt status on chicken feed. He was wrong!

What he should have asked was, do I sell any of our eggs? Yes, I do is the simple answer. If you sold any meat chickens, that would also count. That's all that is needed in my state to qualify for tax exemption.

Anyways, you can look at what is needed in my state and see if PA has something similar. Again, it took me less than 5 minutes to fill out the form and hand it back to my Fleet store manager who submitted it for me. I am now back in the system and tax exempt on feed.

Good luck. Each state is different. But it was certainly worth my time to buy my feed tax free.

Thank you so much for all the help and the detail! For some reason I thought you were in PA! Duh!! I think it is exactly the same here. I just spent some time poking around on the PA Dept of Revenue website and found a similar form. As far as I can tell I just fill it out and take it to the feed store. Tractor Supply actually mentions it on their website and I called my local grain mill and they knew what I was talking about! So I am going to give it a go. I seem to be the only person here who owns a farm who isn't claiming any kind of exemption!

 

[Seaslug]

I may have been the PA resident you remember writing in this thread. You may want to talk to your local Farm Bureau rep to get the ins and outs of this. I work in a PA non-profit and I know that we have to do a LOT to keep our tax exempt status in PA and really watch our "Ps and Qs." I imagine that it is at least somewhat specific on the farming side, as well, but perhaps it does not have as many reporting components. Farming has better lobbying in PA (so our legislature usually does right by them and your Farm Bureau should be able to at least point you in the right direction re: tax concerns.

 

[gtaus]

I seem to be the only person here who owns a farm who isn't claiming any kind of exemption!

I'm not a farmer, per se, but I do have a backyard flock of chickens and sell our excess eggs. That qualifies me for the Agricultural Production exemption for feed in MN. I'll save about $50.00 per year. But that's 3 bags of feed for free and I don't mind claiming the exemption. I think other backyard flock owners might be able to save a little money if they take the time to look into it and submit the form. Again, it took less than 5 minutes for me to fill out the form and hand it back into my local Fleet store.

I work in a PA non-profit and I know that we have to do a LOT to keep our tax exempt status in PA and really watch our "Ps and Qs."

That's a totally different situation. I don't want people to think they need to go through the hoops of tax-exempt status for an organization just to get livestock feed tax exempt. Well, at here in MN it's just a simple form and less than 5 minutes of your time.

BTW, once you are qualified for tax free feed, that form stays in effect for years. The only reason I had to resubmit the form after 5 years was because our local Fleet store got a new computer system and dumped all their old information! Who does that? They created a mess for themselves and lots of people complained about it. It took a month or so, and I had to resubmit a new form, but everything is back to normal, and I no longer pay sales tax on my feed.

 

[Seaslug]

These things all vary state to state, regarding who is eligible for tax free purchasing of what products and under what circumstances.

I am not trying to discourage anyone from utilizing a tax credit that is available to them.
It is wonderful that things are so simple in MN.
I am recommending, in response to a poster from my state, that they contact our state-wide farm advocacy non-profit that would know the legalities for Pennsylvania.
In part because as a non-profit I use the same form and rules for tax free purchasing as agricultural producers use for at least some of their tax free purchasing, so I am aware of the paperwork involved. And in PA it is not a "fill this form out once and never do it again" thing. I am in no way saying it is the same as filing as a non-profit, but PA does not just take one's word forever, either.

 

[febane]

The correct answer was that their new system was all jacked up and it would take a while to fix things. Unfortunately, the first manager I talked to pretended he knew something about farm feed tax laws and exemptions - which he did not.

The other managers I talked to, actually knew their new system had a lot of problems and they worked to get things right. It took a number of weeks, but everything is back to where if you have a farm exemption, you don't have to pay tax on feed. There was a lot of complaints from many of us that were charged tax on feed when we had farm exemptions. The managers at the store worked it out, but it took a number of weeks.

Just think that if you state offers a tax exemption for feed, it is because they want to encourage people to raise livestock and sell those goods. Which I do, albeit on a small level. With my small backyard flock, we have all the eggs we can eat at home and we sell our excess eggs to friends at a discount. Selling our excess eggs more than pays for my feed costs, and keeps my backyard flock earning their keep. A vehicle's past can tell you a lot when you're buying used, which is why checking a car history report is so important. It provides key details like previous ownership, accident history, title status, odometer readings, and service records. Reports from services like Carfax or AutoCheck can reveal red flags such as salvage titles or undisclosed accidents. Always cross-check the VIN on the report with the car itself to ensure accuracy. While a clean history doesn’t guarantee a perfect car, it adds an extra layer of confidence. It’s a small investment that can save you from major headaches down the road.

thank you.

 

[gtaus]

I am recommending, in response to a poster from my state, that they contact our state-wide farm advocacy non-profit that would know the legalities for Pennsylvania.

We had managers at our local Fleet store that knew the system and helped with the paperwork. It's obviously in the store's best interest to help people that qualify to get feed tax free. If not, customers will go elsewhere. But like I said, the first manager I talked to did not know the law but pretended he did. Other managers in the store knew the law and they were the ones to help us.

I am in no way saying it is the same as filing as a non-profit, but PA does not just take one's word forever, either.

Well, when you think about it, if you qualify for tax-exempt feed because you have livestock, you are not going to continue buying feed for animals that you don't have. As far as I know, there is no end date on the ST3 form here in MN. If that changes in the future, I'll have to resubmit.

I imagine a non-profit organization needs to keep their status current annually because they are tax-exempt from all purchases? I get my feed tax-free but pay taxes on everything else. I'm not a non-profit organization.

It is wonderful that things are so simple in MN.

Yes, I agree. I just started this thread to inform other people that they might qualify for tax-exemption on feed like me. Our state and local taxes are almost 10% on our purchases. That adds up to real money over the course of a year, or longer.

 

[SkyAJK]

Yes, we have 10% Goods and Services tax on chicken feed.

 

[Karlkurla Chooks]

I don't know where you live, but here in the state of Minnesota in the USA, we don't have to pay tax on production. Chicken feed is considered an agriculture production product if you sell the eggs, which I do. Also, in Minnesota, food is not taxed. So, when I sell our excess eggs, I don't have to collect any sales tax.

If you have a tax exemption program in your state/country, I encourage people to take advantage of it. Those tax exemptions are put in place by legislatures who want to encourage that activity. In my case, I'll save up to about $50.00 per year by my tax exemption status for my backyard flock.

I live in Australia.


Since my chickens plough and fertilise my garden, and eat the mice, they are classed as GARDEN MAINTENANCE and PEST CONTROL expenses!



I have considered selling surplus eggs, but instead I just use them for barter. For instance a friend of mine gave me 20 litres of diesel fuel, so I give him a few dozen or so eggs.