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2/14/2008
Forestland Tax Legislation Introduced |
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Long awaited legislation to bring more favorable property tax treatment to hundreds of thousands of acres of forests was introduced on February 13 by State Representative Richard Royal, R-Camilla. Representative Royal has been working for several weeks with the Georgia Forestry Association and the Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources to craft a constitutional amendment and the legislation to implement the amendment should it pass this year's General Assembly and receive approval statewide at the ballot box in November. Rep. Royal is the author of the conservation use legislation which seventeen years ago created the state's first forestland tax program, Conservation Use Valuation Assessment, or CUVA.
The legislation is extremely timely, given the skyrocketing of local property taxes during the past five years that has created an enormous burden on the owners of our forests and begun to threaten the future of a forested Georgia. In addition, an increasing number of tracts are being fragmented and sold to private individuals, depriving the state of the large, contiguous forests that existed when major paper companies still had land bases here.
"This legislation is huge" says GFA's Steve McWilliams. "It provides an opportunity to have an impact on forest conservation on a large scale while keeping the land where it belongs, in the hands of private owners."
House Resolution (HR) 1276 contains constitutional amendment ballot language and will require a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate. House Bill (HB) 1211 sets out the way that the new tax program will work. While some modifications are expected as the bill moves through the committee process, perhaps beginning as early as next week, the key features of the legislation as it was introduced include:
- Both privately-owned and corporate ownership would be eligible to participate.
- No limits on how many acres could be enrolled, though as drafted the bill sets a minimum tract size of 500, a provision that GFA will work to reduce.
- The 'preferential' tax treatment would require a fifteen year covenant period (CUVA requires only 10)
- Penalties for breach of the covenant would be three times the difference between the tax paid and the tax that would have been paid without the new program, plus interest (CUVA penalties are two times the difference plus interest)
- Counties whose digest would be adversely impacted by 4% or more would be made whole by the state.
Much work remains to be done, but seventeen days in to the 2008 session, Georgia's large forests are being given an opportunity that, if not taken advantage of now, may not come again. Incalculable environmental and economic benefits are at stake.
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