Make Conservation Tax Incentives Permanent

December 9, 2014

ACT NOW to Help Make Permanent Tax Incentives for Conservation Easements.

There is growing hope today on Capitol Hill that H.R. 5806, which focuses exclusively on charity items and would make tax incentives for donated conservation easements PERMANENT, can yet be enacted before Congress goes home on Thursday December 11th. For the fourth time in recent history, enhanced tax incentives for conservation easements have expired making it very difficult to incentivize land owners to conserve their working agricultural lands. However, the house and the senate are trying to work out an immediate deal to bring this important tax legislation to a vote. But they need to hear from YOU!

Please call your U.S. House Representative and Senator Cornyn NOW at (202) 224-3121 (the Congressional switchboard will connect you based on zip code or you can look up the direct line for your Representative at http://www.house.gov and Senator at http://www.senate.gov ) and ask them to make these enhanced incentives PERMANENT by supporting the bipartisan charitable tax incentives package HR 5806! We are in particular need of Democratic support.

Please Act before COB Today December 9, 2014.

Primary Message to Congress: Texas is losing working agricultural lands and wildlife habitat at one of the fastest rates in the country. Making permanent the enhanced tax incentives for conservation easements would help conserve working farms, ranches and wildlife habitat before they are lost forever. These lands are the foundation of our economy and life as we know it providing food, water and clean air.

What is at Stake?

  • The average age of today’s farmer or rancher is 58. 50% of those between 58 and 64 years old don’t have an estate plan. The No.1 reason for rural land loss = estate taxes. Unless something is done, we will see a massive turnover in land ownership and fragmentation in the next 10-15 years.
  • 94% of rural land in Texas is in farms and ranches. When it does rain – that rain falls on private lands. Financial incentives will help farming and ranching families to keep stewarding our precious natural resources… like water.

Here in Texas the impact of making the enhanced tax incentives permanent means conservation easements will become more financially viable for a wider group of farmers and ranchers. It is important to note that conserving working agricultural lands is the most cost-effective and easy to implement long-term water security strategy.

A donated conservation easement is a voluntary tool that reduces the value of the land and provides tax incentives that make it possible for families to protect, conserve and pass on their working agricultural lands to future generations while conserving precious natural resource that benefit all of us.

The Enhanced Tax Incentives Need to be Permanent

In years where the enhanced tax incentives have not been available, land conservation has occurred at a much slower rate simply because it was not financially viable for many landowners who would otherwise be interested in a conservation easement to do so. A survey by the Land Trust Alliance shows that this incentive helped the nation’s 1,700 land trusts increase the pace of conservation by a third – to over a million acres a year. Such easements are cost-effective and voluntary, and the enhanced deduction makes it possible for modest-income farmers, ranchers and other property owners to make such gifts.

Texas farmers and ranchers who might have otherwise preferred to have kept their land in production and pass it on to their children, have found themselves at the mercy of rising land values and punitive estate taxes which often forces families to sell the very thing that has been the foundation of their income and family legacy. Without these large tracts of working agricultural lands and thoughtful stewards to manage these critical natural resources, the sustainability of our future is in jeopardy.

Long-used by environmental groups, the conservation easement has recently been used with success to conserve working farms, ranches and wildlife habitat. The Partnership of Rangeland Trusts, an association of cattlemen’s land trusts, today has 2 million acres of working ranches and farms under conservation easement, much of which has occurred under temporary enhanced tax incentives that were originally put in place in 2006.

Unfortunately, this provision has expired for the fourth time in recent history. If Congress fails to act, landowners may be forced to sell off treasured lands rather than keep them in the family. Up until now, these important revisions to the tax code have been repeatedly extended on a short-term, often erratic basis that limits their impact, as donors cannot consistently rely on the certainty of receiving tax benefits for their generous donations. This erratic extension cycle hinders tax planning for families and results in the deferment or outright loss of conservation easement donations on important working lands.

Please call your Representative and Senator today at (202) 224-3121.Ask them to make PERMANENT the incentives for donated conservation easements.

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