If the property is converted to nonfarm use, however, the owner must repay benefits for the five most recent years. There is no dispute that sellers conveyed the property at issue. The State Board of Appraisers held that purchasers were not farmers at the time that they purchased the farm because they did not earn at least one-half of their 1993 gross income from farming. Sellers maintain that purchasers were farmers because they began earning at least one-half of their annual income from farming when they purchased the farm at the end of 1993. The department showed that sellers conveyed the property on December 29, 1993.
Sellers have the burden of establishing that an exception applies.
They failed to do so under either interpretation of the statute. Although sellers maintained that purchasers began receiving fifty percent of their income from farming when they received their first milk check, they presented no evidence to support this assertion. Before the Board, they claimed that it was the State's burden to prove that purchasers were not farmers, that they had no access to purchasers' tax records or financial information, and that they had no evidence of purchasers' income from farming or otherwise. Indeed, purchasers urged the Board to require the department to wait for purchasers to file their 1994 tax returns to determine whether purchasers were farmers with respect to the farm conveyance. To counter sellers' unsupported assertion that purchasers were farmers, the department relied on purchasers' 1993 tax returns and a telephone call to purchasers to confirm that they did not earn at least one-half of their income from farming.