It's clear that the sale of so-called farm-raised deer will be taxed under a bill that passed in the final hours of the 2015 legislative session. Debate was marked by passionate input from a leading hunting advocate in the Iowa Senate.
Up to now, some farmers had been considering the sales to be tax-exempt in the manner of the sales of other livestock such as hogs or cattle.
Des Moines Democrat Dick Dearden says deer which are raised on farms to be sold to preserves are not raised for meet, as other farm animals are. They’re raised for their antlers.
“For some yo yo to come in from out-of-state, or even in state, to shoot a big deer with a rifle in a pen,” Dearden says.
Under the bill, the Department of Revenue will not go after any unpaid sales tax from the past. Senator Dearden disagrees with that.
“We’re giving them back money that they should have collected,” Dearden says. “This is ridiculous.”
Dearden says white-tailed deer are subject to chronic-wasting disease which threatens the wild deer that hunters care about.
