Wrapping The Green Flag Around Tax Shenanigans
The intellectual justification for why syndications can work is that there is this other value to be placed on land for purposes of charitable deduction – the discounted cash flow from a hypothetical highest and best use. In that view, it does not matter what anybody is currently willing to pay for the land any more than it matters what the used building materials will go on the shelf for in the aggressive deconstruction deductions.
I doubt that the deconstruction deductions will end up creating as much drama as the conservation easements, but we will see.
Valuation Abuse In Conservation Easements – Rare Or Pervasive?
Way back in 2011 covering a private letter ruling that disallowed exempt status for a sketchy land trust I came up with a prescient title Conservation Easements A New Field For Villainy.
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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.