When you dispose of property used in your farm business, your taxable gain or loss is usually treated as ordinary income (which is taxed at the same rates as wages and interest income) or capital gain (which is generally taxed at lower rates) under the rules for section 1231 transactions.

When you dispose of depreciable property (section 1245 property or section 1250 property) at a gain, you may have to recognize all or part of the gain as ordinary income under the depreciation recapture rules. Any gain remaining after applying the depreciation recapture rules is a section 1231 gain, which may be taxed as a capital gain.

Gains and losses from property used in farming are reported on Form 4797, Sales of Business Property. Table 9-1 contains examples of items reported on Form 4797 and refers to the part of that form on which they first should be reported.

See chapter 16 for information about getting publications and forms.

Section 1231 gains and losses are the taxable gains and losses from section 1231 transactions (explained below). Their treatment as ordinary or capital gains depends on whether you have a net gain or a net loss from all of your section 1231 transactions in the tax year.

Gain or loss on the following transactions is subject to section 1231 treatment.

• Sale or exchange of cattle and horses. The cattle and horses must be held for draft, breeding, dairy, or sporting purposes and held for 24 months or longer.
• Sale or exchange of other livestock. This livestock must be held for draft, breeding, dairy, or sporting purposes and held for 12 months or longer. Other livestock includes hogs, mules, sheep, goats, donkeys, and other fur-bearing animals. Other livestock does not include poultry.
• Sale or exchange of depreciable personal property. This property must be used in your business and held longer than 1 year. Generally, property held for the production of rents or royalties is considered to be used in a trade or business. Examples of depreciable personal property include farm machinery and trucks. It also includes amortizable section 197 intangibles.
• Sale or exchange of real estate. This property must be used in your business and held longer than 1 year. Examples are your farm or ranch (including barns and sheds).
• Sale or exchange of unharvested crops. The crop and land must be sold, exchanged, or involuntarily converted at the same time and to the same person, and the land must have been held longer than 1 year. You cannot keep any right or option to reacquire the land directly or indirectly (other than a right customarily incident to a mortgage or other security transaction). Growing crops sold with a leasehold on the land, even if sold to the same person in a single transaction, are not included.
• Distributive share of partnership gains and losses. Your distributive share must be from the sale or exchange of property listed earlier and held longer than 1 year (or for the required period for certain livestock).
• Cutting or disposal of timber. You must treat the cutting or disposal of timber as a sale, as described in chapter 8 under Timber.
• Condemnation. The condemned property (defined in chapter 11) must have been held longer than 1 year. It must be business property or a capital asset held in connection with a trade or business or a transaction entered into for profit, such as investment property. It cannot be property held for personal use.
• Casualty or theft. The casualty or theft must have affected business property, property held for the production of rents or royalties, or investment property (such as notes and bonds). You must have held the property longer than 1 year. However, if your casualty or theft losses are more than your casualty or theft gains, neither the gains nor the losses are taken into account in the section 1231 computation. Section 1231 does not apply to personal casualty gains and losses. See chapter 11 for information on how to treat those gains and losses.

A sale, exchange, or involuntary conversion of property held mainly for sale to customers is not a section 1231 transaction. If you will get back all, or nearly all, of your investment in the property by selling it rather than by using it up in your business, it is property held mainly for sale to customers.

To determine the treatment of section 1231 gains and losses, combine all of your section 1231 gains and losses for the year.

• If you have a net section 1231 loss, it is an ordinary loss.
• If you have a net section 1231 gain, it is ordinary income up to your nonrecaptured section 1231 losses from previous years, explained next. The rest, if any, is long-term capital gain.

Your nonrecaptured section 1231 losses are your net section 1231 losses for the previous 5 years that have not been applied against a net section 1231 gain by treating the gain as ordinary income. These losses are applied against your net section 1231 gain beginning with the earliest loss in the 5-year period.

In 2011, Ben has a $2,000 net section 1231 gain. To figure how much he has to report as ordinary income and long-term capital gain, he must first determine his section 1231 gains and losses from the previous 5-year period. From 2006 through 2010 he had the following section 1231 gains and losses.

Year			Amount
2006			-0-
2007			-0-
2008			($2,500)
2009			-0-
2010			$1,800

Ben uses this information to figure how to report his net section 1231 gain for 2011 as shown below.

1)	Net section 1231 gain (2011)		$2,000
2)	Net section 1231 loss (2008)	($2,500)
3)	Net section 1231 gain (2010)	1,800
4)	Remaining net section 1231 loss from prior 5 years	($700)
5)	Gain treated as ordinary income		$700
6)	Gain treated as long-term capital gain		$1,300

His remaining net section 1231 loss from 2008 is completely recaptured in 2011.