Syndication Of Conservation Tax Deductions – Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Originally published on Forbes.com. The Senate Finance Committee report- Syndicated Conservation-Easement Transactions - released on August 25 is very heartening. It...
First Surrender In IRS War On Abusive Conservation Deductions
I spoke with Bill Clabough, executive director of Foothills. He was somewhat diffident about my enthusiasm for East Tennessee’s Union leaning. Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State, but the reference is to either the Mexican War or the War of 1812, not the Late Unpleasantness.
He and I had discussed the beautiful property before and he assured me that the elk and the deer and the wild turkeys are undisturbed by the outcome of the litigation. They remain protected. Mr. Clabough had invited me to visit the property on my tour of the country, but that got a little disrupted by Covid-19. He assured me that my concern about unexploded ordnance from the property’s use as an artillery range during World War II was misguided.
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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.