A farmer’s final harvest: Why leaving his crop unpicked saved his Social Security checks from being slashed

A blueberry farmer was selling his farm while one final crop was still growing. Instead of harvesting and selling the blueberries himself, he sold the farm with the berries still on the bushes. Because the land and the unharvested crop were sold together in a single transaction, the proceeds could be treated as part of the property sale rather than as farming income.

The impact for Social Security?

For people receiving Social Security before full retirement age, benefits can be reduced if they earn too much from wages or self-employment. This is known as the retirement earnings test.

If the farmer had harvested the berries and sold them through normal farm operations, then the profit would generally be counted as self-employment earnings, potentially reducing his Social Security payments.

By contrast, selling the unharvested crop together with the farmland meant the gain could be treated as a property sale under Section 1231 of the U.S. tax code. In that case, it was generally not counted as earnings for the Social Security earnings test, helping preserve his benefits.

The farmer did not save Social Security benefits by abandoning the crop; he saved them by structuring the transaction so that the buyer acquired both the land and the standing crop before harvest. The value of the crop became part of the farm sale rather than farm income.

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