OVERLAND PARK, KANSAS — Livestock Marketing Association, or LMA, applauds the introduction of the Helping Ensure Rural Inheritance Transfers Are Generationally Enduring, or HERITAGE, Act. The bill, set in motion by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mississippi), would help preserve family-owned agricultural land by adjusting the Internal Revenue Code that forces many families to sell their farmland to pay federal estate tax liabilities.

Mike VanMaanen, LMA president and owner of Eastern Missouri Commission Co., applauded the bill.

“As an auction market owner and cattleman, I see firsthand how the death tax negatively impacts not only livestock producers, but our nation’s food security,” he said. “We appreciate Sen. Hyde-Smith’s commitment to the cattle industry, rural communities and consumers everywhere.”

The HERITAGE Act would amend IRC Section 2032A, which was enacted in 1976 to allow special-use valuation of farmland to reduce the estate tax value of farming operations.  The maximum reduction under the 1976 law was just $750,000. Adjusted for inflation in 2025 that figure is $1.42 million, and woefully inadequate for preserving modern family farm operations — many of which are considered “land rich but cash poor.”

Hyde-Smith’s legislation would, among other things, increase the special-use valuation cap to $15 million for qualified real property used for farming purposes.  This change would help keep many heirs from being forced to face a choice between selling portions of their productive farmland or incurring substantial debt to pay estate tax liabilities.