Congressmen Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.), Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) and a bipartisan group of 133 of their colleagues today introduced a bill to help landowners work with 1,700 land trusts nationwide to protect millions of acres critical for water, wildlife and working farms, ranches and forests. Both are members of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. “H.R. 2807 makes conservation a real and affordable option for family farmers, ranchers and forest landowners to protect lands that are vitally important to their communities,” said Land Trust Alliance President Rand Wentworth, the head of a national conservation group representing 1,700 land trusts that have conserved 47 million acres. “We have such a diverse coalition of groups working together on this bill because saving land helps communities in so many ways. [To find out how many land trusts exist in each state and how many acres they conserve, visit: http://www.lta.org/census-datatables.] The bill has an extraordinarily varied list of supporters, including 64 organizations representing agriculture, wildlife conservation, forestry, hunting and fishing, and the environment. It also has generated a list of 135 cosponsors that spans the ideological spectrum, a rare event in what has been a very partisan session of Congress. A list of cosponsors is posted at: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.uscongress/legislation.113hr2807 . Since 2006, an enhanced income tax deduction has enabled family farmers, ranchers and forest landowners to get a significant tax benefit for voluntarily forgoing future development of their land, boosting conservation by one third, to more than one million acres a year. However, this enhanced tax incentive is due to expire at the end of this year. The introduction of the bill is particularly important given that a major rewrite of the tax code is expected from both the House and Senate tax committees this year. Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Orin Hatch (R-Utah), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee have introduced a similar bill, S.526, in the Senate. Without the enhanced tax incentive, an agricultural landowner earning $50,000 a year who donated a conservation easement worth $1 million could take a total of only $90,000 in tax deductions. Under the enhanced incentive, that landowner can take up to $800,000 in tax deductions – still less than the full value of the donation, but a nearly nine-fold increase that would dramatically increase voluntary land conservation...more
Why bring in the feds and the IRS-tax policy at all? If a landowner has property where the development rights are worth $1 million, the land trust can purchase those rights and hold the easement. All negotiations are private and between the trust and the landowner, with no fed involvement.
But the land trusts want their mission subsidized, and the DC Deep Thinkers have established a national policy that: Subsidizes ag production on the one hand and with the other subsidizes taking land out of production or limiting future production.
This is also billed as "voluntary land conservation." Have they not heard of the death tax? Many times an ag family is faced with this tax and have to sell all or part of their property to just pay this tax. Rather than that they will opt for the conservation tax subsidy so the family can continue to ranch. They are put in this box by federal tax policy, so I would hardly call this "voluntary". Those who want to see western ag traditions continue would serve us all better by amending the inheritance tax.
Besides, the IRS is going to be much too busy enforcing Obamacare.
Sadly, I note U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan is one of the cosponsors, as he continues to promote everything in the environmental wish list.
1 comment:
Well said Frank.
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