Ranchers Stewardship Alliance workshop on Feb. 6

The Ranchers Stewardship Alliance will be conducting a workshop entitled “Business Succession and Estate Planning- With a Montana Ranching Flavor” on February 6, starting at 10 a.m. at the Malta Business Center in Malta, Montana .

The trainingbegins at 10 a.m. and will conclude by 4:30 p.m. There will be a break for lunch on your own. The training will cover income and estate tax strategies for succession planning. Also included will be information on the transfer of assets.

There will also be a discussion of the use of business entities to form pooling strategies and the structures necessary to accumulate money for expensive land purchases. The cost of the workshop is $20/person. The Ranchers Stewardship Alliance is a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization with a mission to sustain and protect our rural ranch and farm families. One way they do that is to educate agriculture producers in topics that will help them sustain their family business. Speakers for the workshop will be Curt Barnekoff, CPA with WIPFLI LLP of Havre, Marsha Goetting, Ph.D., CFP®, CFCS of the Montana State University Extension, and Joel Schumacher, an Extension Associate Specialist with the Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics at Montana State University. Curt Barnekoff is a partner in WIPFLI and a CPA with 34 years of experience specializing in agricultural tax and business succession. He is involved in tax compliance, planning and consulting. He helps family agriculture businesses maximize their after tax net worth and assist in developing and implementing plans to keep the family business “in the family”. Marsha Goetting is a Professor and Extension Family Economics Specialist.

During the past seven years she has presented over 450 educational sessions reaching over 12,900 Montanans with financial and estate planning information. She has received state, regional and national state awards for her programs. Dr. Goetting received her Bachelors and Masters degrees in Family Economics and Adult Education from Kansas State University. Her PhD is from Iowa State University. She will be sharing her love of Montana wildflowers with her expertise in estate planning to offer an exciting new program “Wildflower Reflections: Families Legacies and Estate Planning”.

Joel Schumacher holds a Masters Degree in Applied Economics and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business from Montana State University. He is also an Accredited Financial Counselor. His research and outreach programs focus on bioenergy production, agricultural finance and consumer economics. Joel has authored or co- authored more than two dozen educational guides and presented more than 100 educational outreach programs to over tree thousand participant.

Prior to his current position, Joel worked as a pension analyst for a full service third party administration firm. The Ranchers Stewardship Alliance encourages you to attend the important workshop and help them “bring back the next generation”. For more information, contact Perri Jacobs at (406) 658-2516 or Kathy Bagley at (406) 654-1523, [email protected].