TOT Property Holdings Highlights Fundamental Flaw In Conservation Syndications
As I have noted elsewhere SCE is an industry based on nonsense. Investors buy into a partnership that has recently acquired a property. They then vote to donate an easement on the property to a land trust. The declared value of the easement is a multiple of the price paid for the entire property.
CPAs Should Steer Clear Of Syndicated Conservation Easements
There are twelve investment vehicles mentioned in the indictment. They have names like Inland Capital Investment Fund 2014, Coastal Property Holdings and Eastern Sierra Holdings 2018. Easements on 8,236 acres yielded charitable contributions of $956 million. That works out to $116,076 per acre. Assuming a 37% rate the tax subsidy for the easements would be just shy of 43,000 per acre if the deductions held up.
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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.