Taxing Family Forest Owners: Implications of Federal and State Policies in the United States

Butler, Brett J.; Catanzaro, Paul; Greene, John L.; Hewes, Jaketon H.; Kilgore, Michael A.; Kittredge, David B.; Ma, Zhao; Tyrrell, Mary L.

doi:10.5849/jof.11-097

Cited by 18 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Nearby development can directly affect landowners' ability to achieve the aesthetic, cultural, recreational and social benefits, which they value most. As development encroaches and property values rise, property taxes also increase which can create a financial burden on landowners who do not manage their properties for income generation (Butler et al, 2012;Greene et al, 2014;Ma et al, 2014). These are the difficult tradeoffs faced by landowners in rapidly urbanizing regions.…”

Section: Bayesian Methods To Estimate Urban Growth Potential Introducmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bayesian methods to estimate urban growth potential

Smith

Smart

Dorning

et al. 2017

Landscape and Urban Planning

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Urban growth often influences the production of ecosystem services. The impacts of urbanization on landscapes can subsequently affect landowners' perceptions, values and decisions regarding their land. Within land-use and land-change research, very few models of dynamic landscape-scale processes like urbanization incorporate empirically-grounded landowner decision-making processes. Very little attention has focused on the heterogeneous decision-making processes that aggregate to influence broader-scale patterns of urbanization. We examine the land-use tradeoffs faced by individual landowners' in one of the United States' most rapidly urbanizing regionsthe urban area surrounding Charlotte, North Carolina. We focus on the land-use decisions of non-industrial private forest owners located across the region's development gradient. A discrete choice experiment is used to determine the critical factors influencing individual forest owners' intent to sell their undeveloped properties across a series of experimentally varied scenarios of urban growth. Data are analyzed using a hierarchical Bayesian approach. The estimates derived from the survey data are used to modify a spatiallyexplicit trend-based urban development potential model, derived from remotely-sensed imagery and observed changes in the region's socioeconomic and infrastructural characteristics between 2000 and 2011. This modeling approach combines the theoretical underpinnings of behavioral economics with spatiotemporal data describing a region's historical development patterns. By integrating empirical social preference data into spatially-explicit urban growth models, we begin to more realistically capture processes as well as patterns that drive the location, magnitude and rates of urban growth.

show abstract

Section: Bayesian Methods To Estimate Urban Growth Potential Introducmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bayesian methods to estimate urban growth potential

Smith

Smart

Dorning

et al. 2017

Landscape and Urban Planning

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The major taxes related to private forest owners include inheritance tax, which is a national tax, fixed property tax, which is paid as an annual municipal tax, and forest income tax, which is a national sales tax that must be paid by sellers of standing trees. 5 Forests are evaluated by dividing the area into forested land and standing trees. The forested land evaluation is calculated by multiplying the evaluation of the property tax 6 by a constant number.…”

Section: Forest Inheritance Taxmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4 In the United States, the maximum rate was 35% in 2011 (Butler [5], p. 374). 5 There is limited literature related to inheritance tax in Japan in English. Examples include GHQ/SCAP ( [6], pp.…”

Section: Forest Inheritance Taxmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…41-42) surveyed the situation surrounding forest inheritance and classified households based on the corresponding inheritance tax as follows: (1) cutting the old, natural forest, (2) compulsory destructive cutting, (3) selling real estate, (4) borrowing money, (5) planned gift before death, and (6) a combinations of the above five patterns. The best strategy was concluded to be a combination of (1) and (5), emphasizing the role of gift before death. Yamazaki [31] pointed out that there were many cases of tax avoidance by tentative division or gifting of forest before death, concluding that this situation was the forest owners' legitimate resistance to the forest inheritance tax.…”

Section: Taxes and Taxation Trendsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Current Status of and Problems with the Forest Inheritance Tax in Japan

Matsushita¹

2018

Taxes and Taxation Trends

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The number of aged forest owners is increasing as Japanese society ages and the number of inheritances involving forest is increasing. The current forest inheritance policies, including the inheritance tax, were introduced after World War II and the entire inheritance system urgently needs improving. Although tax-reduction policies have decreased the forest inheritance tax, private forest owners are facing a greatly decreased domestic timber market and low stumpage prices. The number of non-resident and non-farmer forest owners is increasing, and the traditional farm family-based forestry system is facing a crisis. As the population of Japan decreases, especially in rural areas, the forest inheritance tax must be reconsidered so that non-resident and non-farmer forest owners who have little knowledge of forest management will sell their forests to new owners who are interested in forest management, such as current resident forest owners and forestry companies. Although the 2014 measure that postpones payment of the forest inheritance tax is an important way to support sustainable forest management, especially by largescale forest owners, the targeted individuals who obtain the advantage must be reconsidered.

show abstract

“…Apart from program summaries and analyses, efforts have been made in recent years to better coordinate existing programs and authorities to achieve greater GHG mitigation in practice, such as the aforementioned USDA Building Blocks initiative. Even in the absence of new authorities, efforts to better coordinate or communicate the existence of tax and other incentives can help to facilitate preservation or sustainable management activities [43,44]. If mitigation is to be achieved or facilitated through existing programs, many of which may not be specifically targeted to carbon storage or GHG emissions reduction, it is necessary to first identify relevant programs and then determine how they can be best leveraged to achieve climate benefits [4].…”

Section: Continued Use Of Existing Policies and Programsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Near-Term Pathways for Achieving Forest and Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in the U.S.

Galik

Murray

Parish

2017

Climate

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

U.S. forests and agriculture present unique opportunities to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. U.S. forests currently remove a large amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year and store it as a terrestrial carbon sink, a trend that is projected to continue, although at a decreasing rate over time. Agriculture is and will continue to be a net source of GHGs. To encourage additional mitigation, analyses suggest addressing forest loss, forest aging, wildfire, and encouraging greater forest growth. In agriculture, analyses suggest addressing animal operation methane emissions and nitrous oxide from fertilizer use. Absent new targeted policies to encourage mitigation practices such as these, existing programs may need to be better leveraged for GHG mitigation, even if that is not their explicit objective. Leveraging existing programs requires coordinated outreach efforts to ensure that practices are not cross-purposed. Development of standards and verification practices is also necessary to ensure desirable outcomes. Finally, greater mitigation may be possible by maximizing the effectiveness of voluntary efforts from private and non-governmental organizations, and not necessarily the implementation of new policies. This conclusion represents a departure from traditional commentary on the subject, but arguably represents a more realistic path forward to achieving climate mitigation objectives in the near-term.Keywords: greenhouse gas mitigation; agriculture; forestry; climate policy; United States For decades, research has sought to estimate both the consequences of global climate change on agriculture and forestry, as well the potential greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation available from the two sectors [1,2]. More recent research has likewise sought to describe the policy and market means by which to achieve these contributions [3][4][5][6]. In practice, however, policies and incentives have yet to emerge to support forest and agricultural GHG mitigation efforts on a broad scale. Questions thus remain as to how agricultural and forest mitigation can be achieved in the near-term, defined here as the next 10-15 years, absent policies specifically targeted to addressing climate change.The assessment below begins with a review of estimates of GHG mitigation potential from U.S. farms and forests. We discuss mitigation potential as identified in the literature and by public entities, providing estimates of both technical and economic mitigation potential where available. We then review the policy or market instruments capable of facilitating mitigation in the agriculture and forest sectors. Next, we briefly discuss the likelihood of new policy or market development in the near future, concluding with a brief discussion on the most likely path or paths for achieving GHG mitigation in U.S. forests and farms in the coming decade.

show abstract

Taxing Family Forest Owners: Implications of Federal and State Policies in the United States

Cited by 18 publications

References 16 publications

Bayesian methods to estimate urban growth potential

Bayesian methods to estimate urban growth potential

Current Status of and Problems with the Forest Inheritance Tax in Japan

Near-Term Pathways for Achieving Forest and Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in the U.S.

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About