SSR 61-28. SOIL BANK PAYMENTS
- Where a farm owner-operator withdraws from cultivation land he had previously cultivated and places it in the soil bank conservation reserve program, held, the conservation reserve payments he receives are includible in computing his net earnings from self-employment for social security purposes.
A owned and operated a farm on which he had produced ten acres of cotton and forty acres of grain in 1957. In 1958 the ten acres of cotton land were put into the soil bank conservation reserve program and in that year A received conservation reserve payments for the land so retired.
The question is whether the conservation reserve payments received by A are includible in computing his net earnings from self-employment for social security purposes.
Payments received by a farm operator for land withdrawn from production and placed in the conservation reserve program under the Federal Soil Bank Act enacted in 1956 and amended in 1958, are includible in computing net earnings from self-employment. In the present case, A was the operator of his farm in 1958 when he withdrew ten acres of land from cultivation and placed them in the conservation reserve program. Accordingly, it is held that the conservation reserve payments received by A in 1958 are includible in computing his "net earnings from self-employment" for social security purposes.