Horses have been reclassified as livestock in Kentucky. Well it’s good news for some. Now you can write off feed and other supplies on your taxes. Bad news is that it will bring horse slaughter back to the state.
That sound like bad news for PETA, HSUS, and ASPCA, but great news for horse owners. They are livestock. Designating them as companion animals would be a disaster. I don’t see the down side here.
The only articles I saw bringing up slaughter on my quick Google search, were by Tuesday’s Horse. I have a hard time taking an article on slaughter with a “Go Vegan” link at the top of the page seriously. They look pretty far out there and the “facts” I saw were questionable.
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I would think unless you are in an equine business of some nature you could not just write off the cost of feed/hay… but I suspect you are saying feed and hay will not be subjected to sales tax ?
Here, for some reason even as horses are thought to be sort of a quasi pet the feed and hay is not subject to state sales taxes
When the government wanted to start fining us horse owners for none compliance of the livestock tracking records it was a big deal to not have the horses classified as livestock
Fine were to be $10K per event, so every-time my horses stepped off my property onto the leased pasture next door I was to record their movement and when they returned
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That I can see as a problem. The OMG, they are now livestock so they are going to slaughter - not so much. But it wouldn’t bother me if they opened a slaughterhouse in KY.
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It would be both that there will be no sales tax, and if, your expenses are high enough, you can write them off.
I would have posted the link, but it was on Veterinary Information Network which is a members-only group.
You can ONLY “write off” expenses on anything if it’s specifically permitted. If you are a bona fide farm then you can deduct your expenses of operation and declare your income. If you say your specialty is horses be prepared for a detailed audit as that part of the livestock industry has been a hotbed of tax fraud for decades. If you are a “hobby farm” you can deduct expenses but only to the extent of income. It can’t become a “tax shelter.”
I remember the “Mad Cow Disease” panic and the desire of The Authorities to track each and every livestock animal in the U.S. from birth to death. I never really paid attention to how that ultimately turned out.
Horses are livestock, no matter how The Authorities define them. Maybe minis might be an exception, but average riding horses are not.
I understand the opposition of equine slaughter but IMO there has to be a way to deal with surplus equine populations that don’t exclusively require backhoes or crematoria.
G.
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To my understanding, the current lack of slaughter plants for human consumption in the US has zero to do with the classification of horses as livestock, pets, or anything else. It is due to the government not funding USDA inspectors for the horse slaughter plants. There is no outright ban on slaughter. But no need for wailing and teeth gnashing… a plant is not going to suddenly open in Kentucky just because horses are defined as livestock, unless that government funding can be reinstated first.
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The government in Frankfort will never stop taxing the equine industry regardless of how horses are classified. It brings in too much money. All equine services here are subject to the KY sales tax while the same services for cattle, sheep, pigs, llamas etc remain untaxed. About 10 years ago, KEEP (KY Equine Education Project) managed to set up a program that returns some of the tax money from stud fees to TB breeders through Breeders Incentives. But it’s still a drop in the bucket compared to what is collected.
As to a slaughterhouse… federal law prohibits that. KY classifications have nothing to do with it.
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Designating them as livestock removes some of the animal welfare laws that could be used in the past in case of neglect. Not that many officials ever enforced any of the available laws to start with.
Now however, it’ll be even easier to get away with horse abuse/neglect in KY. :mad:
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^^^ EXACTLY regarding the animal welfare laws. This is far more closer to the point of the reclassification.
Nope. The welfare laws are changing also. On March 27th, the governor signed a bill that would make it easier for officials to intervene and remove horses in abuse and neglect cases.
I would have thought that if your business was horses, all supplies would have been a tax deduction already. I never lived in KY, but I used to be a CPA in a previous life, so I certainly would have let my horse business clients deduct them.
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Please provide a link to your claim. Thanks.
Horses ARE livestock. Were they previously classified as companion animals?? Pets?
Slaughter has it’s needed place in the horse world , just as with other livestock.
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Horse slaughter in the U.S. shut down 10 years ago because of the USDA inspector funding being cut. Since then the EU has put so many restrictions on horse meat, opening a plant in the U.S. would be a total financial failure.
So why even bring it up???
Horses aren’t raised for food, so there’s no reason for the livestock designation, especially not in Kentucky where now the Fastest Two Minutes In Sport will be run by livestock??? SMH.
Those opposed to considering horses to be ‘livestock’ … what would you consider to be a better alternative?
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Where I live the city government decided to allow backyard chickens for laying organic free range eggs. But you can’t slaughter the chickens. If they get ill you can pay to have a vet euthanize them.
I am waiting for the next outbreak bof avian flu to see how the federal government handles the cull of all these pet chickens.
You can’t adopt a cat if you admit you will let it loose on your backyard. And you can’t make a dog sleep outside in a kennel.
You can keep a dog in a crate in your condo kitchen for 8 hours a day while you are at work but not tied up on a long rope in the yard.
You do not want horses to have pet status. You might suddenly find it against the law to leave them in the pasture overnight!
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In the Long Ago I spent 5 years as the VP (and THE Large Animal Committee) of our local humane society. It was quite an education in the often odd world of “animal welfare/rights.” Fortunately the rest of the BoD were reasonable folks who didn’t have “agendas” they were trying to impose on society. Unfortunately our President, who was also the County Animal Control Officer (unpaid position at that time), did have an agenda and ended up costing the county $300,000 in a judgement in Federal Court for a civil rights violation when she wrongfully (and stupidly) seized a herd of dairy cattle claiming they were being starved. They weren’t.
Our folks were well meant but they were “dog and cat” people and often could not wrap their minds around 1000 pound prey animals that didn’t really need humans to live for 20-30 years. They were not involved in the dairy cow fiasco (fortunately for them) and it took some explaining as to why the conformation of dairy cow is what it is. And why just because you can see a horse’s ribs does not mean it’s being “starved.” They intellectually understood the BCS system but had problems with the “optics” of a healthy, athletic horse. In their mind’s eye (as well as in the mind’s eye of countless owners) a fat horse is a healthy horse. ;(
We were turned down by multiple sources when we tried to obtain some barn cats. The idea of a working cat was incomprehensible to humane society authorities. And the local Big City shelter was one of the most aghast; this was while they were euthanizing 5000-6000 cats per annum because they could not find homes for them. Go figure.
The world of animal welfare, rescue, and shelters is one of fantasy unaffected by reality.
G.
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People who don’t want horses classified as livestock don’t realize the agricultural protections afforded to horse barns/trainers/boarding.
Take away the livestock designation and watch boarding costs become prohibitively expensive as “pet rules” become applied to barns.
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Yes, horses were once companion animals in KY. I would post the link, but as I said before, it is on VIN, Veterinary Information Network. If you aren’t a member, you can’t get in.
