Conservation Easesments A New Field For Villainy
This disinclination to mix charitable endeavors with scamming caused me to miss some of the potential in conservation easements. I remember talking to one of my clients who deals in land and asking him what it really meant to own 10,000 acres of land somewhere. What is that you really have? His answer was “a bundle of rights”. Included in that bundle is the right to do some level of developing subject to local zoning. This might be a valuable right or it might not. If the property is already at its “highest and best use”, which in appraiser speak is the use that gives you the greatest economic return then your development rights are of negligible value.
More From The Boston Tax Institute
Originally published on Passive Activities and Other Oxymorons on May 17th, 2011. ____________________________________________________________________________ Boston...
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Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.