Title 26 › Subtitle Subtitle A— Income Taxes › Chapter 1— NORMAL TAXES AND SURTAXES › Subchapter T— Cooperatives and Their Patrons › Part I— TAX TREATMENT OF COOPERATIVES › § 1382
Cooperatives must count all their gross income and can't lower it just because they give out earnings or keep per-unit amounts for members, except for certain payments made during a special "payment period." Payments that can be left out when figuring taxable income include qualified patronage payments and qualified per-unit retain payments (paid in cash, qualified written notices or qualified retain certificates, or other property), certain redemptions of earlier nonqualified notices or certificates, and dividends on capital stock. The coop can also deduct payments made on a patronage basis that come from business with the United States or from non‑patronage sources. Pools for marketing are treated so that patronage counts when a pool closes and marketing counts in any year the pool is open. If some patron-related earnings are included in income in a later year, the coop may treat the patronage as occurring in that later year under Treasury rules. Coops with pools opened before March 1, 1978, may use the "completed crop pool" accounting method only if they used it for the 10 taxable years ending with their first taxable year beginning after December 31, 1976, and if they have an agreement with a U.S. agency meeting certain loan, use-of-proceeds, repayment, and distribution terms. Key terms: payment period — from the first day of the taxable year through the 15th day of the ninth month after that year ends (a qualified check is treated as paid if endorsed and cashed on or before the 90th day after that period ends); patronage dividends, written notices of allocation, per-unit retain allocations, per-unit retain certificates — types of member payments or notices defined in tax rules; completed crop pool method — compute gain or loss for a crop year when the last products in the pool are sold.
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Internal Revenue Code — Source: USLM XML via OLRC
Legislative History
Reference
Citation
26 U.S.C. § 1382
Title 26 — Internal Revenue Code
Last Updated
Apr 5, 2026
Release point: 119-73not60