Advice For The Looming Tax Deadline – No Fooling
Originally published on Forbes.com. The due date for individual tax returns is actually April 15th this year for most of us. Emancipation Day, a holiday in the...
Grassley Wyden Take On Sketchy Conservation Tax Shelters
The highest and best use is going to be something hypothetical. This is where things can get out of hand. The development to bring the property to its highest and best use is not something that actually has to be executed. So there can be a tendency to think big and assume away minor obstacles like zoning. There was one case where the proposed development didn’t even fit on the parcel. I mean – So what? It’s not like you were going to actually build it.
On top of the valuation issue, there are times when the donee organizations are a little sketchy and won’t really be able to enforce the easements. And sometimes the conservation or public benefit of the easement is altogether dubious. Sometimes easements are given on properties that are already so restricted that there is no real value to them. I compare those to me renouncing my superpowers.
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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.