What are the Tax Rules on Easements?

With the increase in sale of easements for wind power or for recreational use, it is important to examine some of the rules and history of cases involving easements. Read more

The Nature Conservancy Purchases 161,000 acres in New York

BY TREY GARRISON
PUBLISHED AUGUST 2007

The Nature Conservancy purchased 161,000 acres of Finch Paper Holdings forestlands in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. The $110 million deal, which works out to approximately $683 per acre, was announced on June 18 and includes a 20-year working forest agreement that will ensure the continued harvesting of timber on a large portion of the land and preserve approximately 850 jobs at the Glen Falls mill on the Upper Hudson River. Read more

Preserving Endangered Species for Profit

Who can save the Alabama red-bellied turtle? Maybe your accountant can. He or she will have a chance if Congress passes new legislation that would give tax breaks to landowners who act to preserve species like the Alabama red-bellied turtle, one of the creatures considered endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Read more

Will Conservation Easement Tax Breaks Be Extended?

BY JOSEPH GUINTO
PUBLISHED MAY 2007

Act now or forever lose your easement. A tax break for conservation-related land donations-known as conservation easements-is about to expire. That is unless Congress does something about it.

The tax break, signed into law by President Bush in August 2006, vastly expanded the deductions landowners could get in exchange for donating their lands to trusts and surrendering the right to develop those lands. But unless the tax break is extended, it will only apply to lands donated in 2006 or 2007

Some landowner lobby groups are pushing hard for an extension, as are members of Congress, who note that the temporary tax deductions passed in 2006 added to the increasing popularity of conservation easements. The Land Trust Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based interest group, reports that even before the new tax breaks went into effect, the total acreage of conservation easements under control of land trusts had skyrocketed. Acreage under easement increased 148 percent from 2000 to 2005, reaching 6.2 million acres at last count.

For landowners of moderate income, whom the 2006 bill was intended to help, a lot is at stake if the tax break is not extended. The government offers this example: Under the current law, if a rancher earning $50,000 a year on a ranch appraised at $2 million donated half his property to a conservation easement, he would be able to receive $800,000 in tax deductions over a maximum of 16 years. Once the law expires, the maximum tax break on the same donation would fall to $90,000 over a maximum of six years.

Numbers like that have inspired influential Democrats and Republicans in Congress to sponsor bills that would permanently extend the 2006 tax break.

Cut Your Taxes With An Agricultural Exemption

BY TREY GARRISON

Anne Barnett has seen it all. The Florida real estate broker is also a licensed commercial appraiser and has developed and sold properties in Key West, Georgia, and throughout North and Central Florida, including Gainesville, where she bases her company, Southern Property Services. Her clients run the gamut from savvy investors to greenhorns like the South Florida attorney who hired her not long ago. The man and his partners had just bought 232 acres. “These weren’t land guys. They just about bought it sight unseen. This was an investment for them,” she says. Read more

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