Farmers who are looking ahead to retirement or thinking about succession plans need to take the time to have those discussions with family and financial advisers — and it's important to identify goals and how to get there ahead of time.

Don Tobin, a chartered accountant with the Retiring Farmer says about three to five years prior to stepping away from the farm, producers will want to evaluate their options to reduce taxes.

"There are multiple different corporate structures," he says, "everything from partnerships, proprietorships, corporations. They are all taxed differently. So in succession or liquidation strategies, you may want to move from one or more of those structures to minimize the overall tax bill."

Tobin says there are ways within the system for farmers to reduce the tax bill expense.

"Simply splitting income with family members if you are not incorporated — or even if you are incorporated by paying wages, contributing to RRSPs and so forth, some very basic things. If you incorporated, taking dividends from our corporations in matter that we can extract $35,000 to $40,000 dollars in individual outlet modest very minimal income tax as oppose to just ignoring the issue of taxation all together."

Tobin's firm has set up an online program that can help farmers through the process at canadianfarmlearningcentre.com.