Download or read book The Federal Tax Law of Conservation Easements written by Stephen J. Small and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Tax Guide to Conservation Easements written by C. Timothy Lindstrom and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-09-26 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Voluntary land conservation, resulting from increasingly alluring tax benefits, has significantly changed the face of land use in the United States and promises to have an even more significant influence in the future. There are more than 1,500 land trusts in the U.S. today, involving millions of acres of land that have been permanently protected by conservation easements. Most of these land trusts depend heavily upon the significant income or estate tax benefits offered by the federal tax code as an incentive for voluntary land conservation. However, only a very small percentage of land trust personnel, landowners or their advisors, or even government officials, fully understand the complexity of the requirements for these tax benefits. This is a comprehensive book on the tax benefits of the charitable contribution, or bargain sale, of a conservation easement. It provides a detailed explanation of the complex and extensive requirements of the federal tax code and related concepts, including the rules governing the operation of tax-exempt organizations such as land trusts. Clearly written, systematic in its coverage, it is intended to be of value for anyone who deals with land trust issues, including land trust staff and trustees, landowners, lawyers, accountants, government officials, and interested lay people. Structured for easy reference, A Tax Guide to Conservation Easements is designed to be used as a resource tool. Related topics are cross-referenced throughout. All principles in the book are illustrated with one or more useful examples. The tax benefits of contributing a conservation easement are unquestionably the heart of voluntary land conservation today. Knowledge of the tax law relating to land trusts and conservation easements is vital to properly establishing and managing land trusts and to insuring the tax deductibility of conservation easements. The future of voluntary land conservation is dependent on a clear understanding of tax policy. Complete, meticulous, and up to date, A Tax Guide to Conservation Easements is an essential handbook.
Download or read book The Federal Tax Law of Conservation Easements written by Stephen J. Small and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Federal Tax Law of Conservation Easements written by Stephen J. Small and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Conservation Easements written by Dominic P. Parker and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Conservation Easement in California written by Thomas S. Barrett and published by . This book was released on 1983-07 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conservation easement is an effective and flexible technique for land preservation. The Conservation Easement in California, written by California attorneys expert in conservation law for The Trust for Public Land, is an authoritative legal handbook for the use of conservation easements in California. This book puts the conservation easement in context, discusses the historical and legal background of the conservation easement in California, its state and federal tax implications and the problems involved in drafting easements. Of special importance is the book's clear exposition of the statutory distinction between conservation and open space easements, which should be especially helpful to land trusts and public agencies at all levels who want to put these innovative techniques into practise.
Download or read book The Federal Tax Law of Conservation Easements written by Stephen J. Small and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Landowner s Guide to Conservation Easements written by Steven Bick and published by Kendall Hunt. This book was released on 2003-05-23 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Internal Revenue Code Section 170 h written by Nancy A. McLaughlin and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Article is the first of two companion articles that (i) analyze the requirements in Internal Revenue Code section 170(h) that a deductible conservation easement be “granted in perpetuity” and its conservation purpose be “protected in perpetuity” and (ii) compare those requirements to state law provisions addressing the transfer, modification, or termination of conservation easements. This first Article discusses the historical development of the federal charitable income tax deduction for conservation easement donations, the legislative history of section 170(h), and the Treasury Regulations interpreting that section. It explains that section 170(h) and the Treasury Regulations contain a complex web of requirements intended to ensure that a federal subsidy is provided only with respect to conservation easements that permanently protect unique or otherwise significant properties. Such requirements are also intended to ensure that, in the unlikely event changed conditions make continued use of the subject property for conservation or historic preservation purposes impossible or impractical and the easement is extinguished in a state court proceeding, the holder will receive proceeds and use those proceeds to replace the lost conservation or historic values on behalf of the public. The companion article, which will be published in the Winter 2010 edition of the Real Property, Trust & Estate Law Journal, surveys the over one hundred statutes extant in the fifty states and the District of Columbia that authorize the creation or acquisition of conservation easements. That article explains that such statutes contain widely divergent transfer, modification, and termination provisions that were not, for the most part, crafted with an eye toward complying with federal tax law perpetuity requirements. The author concludes that landowners wishing to take advantage of the federal tax incentives offered for conservation easement donations should be required to draft their easements and otherwise structure their donations to satisfy the perpetuity requirements imposed under federal tax law, and any additional conditions or restrictions on the transfer, modification, or termination of conservation easements imposed under state law should also apply, and should provide an added layer of protection of the public interest and investment in such gifts.
Download or read book Open Space Preservation written by Arthur Berry Daugherty and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Changing Landscape written by Laurie Ristino and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Softbound - New, softbound print book.
Download or read book Reinventing Conservation Easements written by Jeff Pidot and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No recent happening in land conservation rivals the rapid expansion of conservation easements and the related growth in the number of land trusts over the past 15 years. Among the forces driving this phenomenon are tax and other public subsidies and the view that the conservation easement is a win-win strategy in land protection. The thesis of this policy focus report is that conservation easements are a valuable land protection tool, complementing regulation, land acquisition, and tax policies, but that reforms are needed in tax and other laws and conventions governing easements, lest we risk losing the public benefits for which the easements were established.
Download or read book The Conservation Easement Tax Expenditure written by Roger Colinvaux and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Federal tax law has long provided a tax benefit for charitable contributions of easements for conservation purposes. A fundamental problem with this conservation easement tax expenditure is that the measure for the tax benefit - lost economic development value - is erroneous. Use of such an erroneous measure obscures the conservation benefits of the program by focusing attention and resources on divining a largely extraneous and unhelpful number. Further, to a considerable extent, the easement program is reflexively justified and understood based on this false measure, as if it represented the conservation value of the program. The Article argues that, in theory, the measure for the tax benefit should be changed to one that better approximates conservation value. This would help ensure that the program is efficient, in the sense that conservation benefits would exceed program costs. However, the theory must account for the fact that conservation value is not, at least not yet, readily susceptible to quantification for tax purposes. Accordingly, the Article also argues that a second-best approach would be to change the measure of the tax benefit to a more objective number - the fair market value of the underlying fee interest - not only to provide greater certainty but more importantly to shift administrative and legal resources and attention to where it should be: on the conservation benefits of the program. Finally, the Article argues that serious consideration should be given to converting the deduction to a credit, both to make the tax benefit more equitable and also to provide greater flexibility, by more easily allowing for different levels of tax benefit to be provided based on satisfaction of conservation criteria, which could and should evolve over time to account for society's changing needs. In any event, irrespective of the details, the conservation easement tax expenditure should be designed to promote a concept of conservation value - an affirmative value - that represents the best use of the land. The value of the tax expenditure should no longer be defined by what is lost, but rather by what is gained.
Download or read book Extinguishing and Amending Tax Deductible Conservation Easements written by Nancy A. McLaughlin and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taxpayers are investing billions of dollars in conservation easements intended to permanently protect unique or otherwise significant land areas or structures through the federal charitable income tax deduction available to easement donors under Internal Revenue Code § 170(h). Astounding amounts of governmental and judicial resources are also being expended to ensure that the easements are not overvalued, that they satisfy elaborate conservation purposes and other threshold requirements, and that the donations are properly substantiated. This enormous up-front investment will be for naught, however, if the purportedly permanent protections prove to be ephemeral because government and nonprofit holders are able to release, sell, swap, or otherwise extinguish the easements in disregard of the restriction on transfer, extinguishment, division of proceeds, and other perpetuity-related requirements in § 170(h) and the Treasury Regulations. The Tax Court's holding in Carpenter v. Commissioner was an important victory for the IRS and the public because it provides some key guidance regarding compliance with § 170(h)'s perpetuity-related requirements. However, Carpenter has also engendered some confusion and speculation, and recent Circuit Court decisions have compounded the problem by undermining the IRS's efforts to enforce the perpetuity-related requirements. This article examines these cases against the backdrop of the legislative history of § 170(h), state law, and public policy. It concludes that clear federal rules regarding the transfer, amendment, and extinguishment of tax-deductible conservation easements are needed because, without such rules, the purportedly perpetual protections will erode over time and the enormous public investment in the easements and the conservation values they are intended to protect for the benefit of future generations will be lost.
Download or read book Protecting the Land written by Julie Ann Gustanski and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a property owner and a conservation organization, generally a private nonprofit land trust, that restricts the type and amount of development that can be undertaken on that property. Conservation easements protect land for future generations while allowing owners to retain property rights, at the same time providing them with significant tax benefits. Conservation easements are among the fastest growing methods of land preservation in the United States today. Protecting the Land provides a thoughtful examination of land trusts and how they function, and a comprehensive look at the past and future of conservation easements. The book: provides a geographical and historical overview of the role of conservation easements analyzes relevant legislation and its role in achieving community conservation goals examines innovative ways in which conservation easements have been used around the country considers the links between social and economic values and land conservation Contributors, including noted tax attorney and land preservation expert Stephen Small, Colorado's leading land preservation attorney Bill Silberstein, and Maine Coast Heritage Trust's general counsel Karin Marchetti, describe and analyze the present status of easement law. Sharing their unique perspectives, experts including author and professor of geography Jack Wright, Dennis Collins of the Wildlands Conservancy, and Chuck Roe of the Conservation Trust of North Carolina offer case studies that demonstrate the flexibility and diversity of conservation easements. Protecting the Land offers a valuable overview of the history and use of conservation easements and the evolution of easement-enabling legislation for professionals and citizens working with local and national land trusts, legal advisors, planners, public officials, natural resource mangers, policymakers, and students of planning and conservation.
Download or read book An Introduction to Conservation Easements in the United States written by Federico Cheever and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of a conservation easement - restrictions on the development and use of land designed to protect the land's conservation or historic values - can be relatively easily understood. More significant and more challenging is the complex body of state and federal laws that shapes the creation, funding, tax treatment, enforcement, modification, and termination of conservation easements. The explosion in the number of conservation easements over the past four decades has made them one of the most popular land protection mechanisms in the United States. The National Conservation Easement Database estimates that the total number of acres encumbered by conservation easements exceeds 40 million.Because conservation easements are both novel and ubiquitous, understanding how they actual work is essential for practicing lawyers, policymakers, land trust professionals, and students of conservation. This article provides a “quick tour” through some of the most important aspects of the developing mosaic of conservation easement law. It gives the reader a sense of the complex inter-jurisdictional dynamics that shape conservation transactions and disputes about conservation easements. Professors of property law, environmental law, tax law, and environmental studies who wish to cover conservation easements in the context of a more general course can use the article to provide their students with a broad but comprehensive overview of the relevant legal and policy issues.
Download or read book Impact of Tax Law on Land Use written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Ways and Means. Subcommittee on Oversight and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
