The Fiscal Cliff for Family Forest Owners
Tom Martin is the President and CEO of AFF.
You’ve been hearing a lot about “the fiscal cliff” these days.
Today, the Washington Post illustrated estimated tax increases with their “Fiscal Cliff Calculator”. At American Forest Foundation (AFF), we’re looking at our own tax calculator with family forest owners in mind.
This week AFF released “The Impact of Estate Taxes on Forest Stewardship”, a preliminary report on the impact of estate taxes on family forest owners. Tangled up in this debate about “tax cuts for the wealthy” is the estate tax that could put millions of acres of America’s forestland at risk.
Tell Congress to Fix the Estate Tax so it Works for America’s Family Forest Owners.
There’s certainly a lot of rhetoric flying around Washington about impending tax increases if Congress doesn’t act by the end of the year. Here are some numbers Congressional leaders and President Obama need to keep in mind:
- Families, not the federal government, own the most forestland in America (251 million acres).
- 52 million acres of forests in America are owned by someone 75 years or older; 150 million by someone 55 years or older.
- 82% of family forest owners make less than $100,000 a year.
- 25% of America’s fresh water comes from private forests, and 60% of America’s imperiled wildlife depend on private forests for habitat.
- Every acre of private forestland supports an average of 8 good paying rural jobs.
Premature harvesting and selling
forestland is a common outcome when heirs are saddled with huge estate tax
bills they cannot pay. In “The
Impact of Estate Taxes on Forest Stewardship”, you’ll learn about forest
owners like Elizabeth Marshall Maybee. Maybee, a school teacher in Northern
California, inherited 3,000 acres of land from her grandmother–along with a $2
million estate tax bill. Selling parcels
was her only option for paying off the bill.
Every day, the affordability of sustainably managing forestland in America becomes harder and harder. That’s why the federal government must do all it can to remove barriers to family ownership, instead of making it even harder for families to keep their forests intact.
AFF is advocating for estate tax
relief for family woodland owners who agree to manage their land to high levels
of sustainability to protect forests from this threat.
Let your representative know that if they care
about forests in America, they need to at a minimum, maintain the current
estate tax rates and support the other solutions in the Keep the Forest and the Farm in the Family Act, which
has been endorsed by 57 other organizations—including conservation groups,
industry groups, and farm groups [PDF]. All Americans need to know that the
estate tax is not just about the 1 percent.
It’s a forest conservation issue that could impact millions of acres of
forestland if Congress doesn’t act.
