Tax Incidence on Cropland and Pastureland Rental Rates

Tax incidence measures the extent to which land owners can increase rental rates in order to shift the agricultural property tax burden to the renters of the agricultural land. In the U.S., Ohio s Current Agricultural Use Value Program (CAUV) determines the taxable value of agricultural land based on formulas incorporating agricultural prices, yields, and capitalization rate but is determined exogenously from market expectations of land value. We estimate the property tax incidence on rental rates of agricultural land. Results indicate that cash rental rates in Ohio from 2008 through 2017 increased between $0.38 to $0.63 for each additional dollar of property tax levied on agricultural land which is similar to the related literature on government payment incidence. Acknowledgement :

Tax incidence measures the extent to which land owners can increase rental rates in order to shift the agricultural property tax burden to the renters of the agricultural land. In the U.S., Ohio s Current Agricultural Use Value Program (CAUV) determines the taxable value of agricultural land based on formulas incorporating agricultural prices, yields, and capitalization rate but is determined exogenously from market expectations of land value. We estimate the property tax incidence on rental rates of agricultural land. Results indicate that cash rental rates in Ohio from 2008 through 2017 increased between $0.38 to $0.63 for each additional dollar of property tax levied on agricultural land which is similar to the related literature on government payment incidence. Acknowledgement :

We estimate the property tax incidence on rented cropland, defined as the extent to which landowners can increase cash rental rates to shift the tax burden of property tax to renters. Using Ohio's Current Agricultural Use Value (CAUV) Program, we are able to avoid issues where the market value of farmland determines the property tax as CAUV assesses farmland in Ohio based on a use‐value formula with historical and state‐wide prices, yields, and costs of corn, soybeans, and wheat. Our results indicate that cash rental rates in Ohio from 2008 through 2017 increased between $0.31 to $0.40 for each additional dollar of property tax levied on cropland in the short run. Further specifications taking into account lagged effects of property tax indicates a higher incidence of $0.61 higher cash rent for each additional dollar of property tax, although this is dispersed over a 3‐year time period.

Estimating Agricultural Use Value for Property Tax Purposes: How do State Programs Assess Use Value?

Since Maryland developed the first farm land use-value assessment scheme in 1956, 46 other states have adopted programs to provide tax relief to eligible farm landowners (Dunford 1980). Statewide reductions in farm property taxes have been commonly approached through the assessment of farmland on its value in current agricultural use rather than on its market value. The exceptions to this approach are the circuit-breaker programs of Wisconsin and Michigan. Although circuit-breaker schemes for property tax relief for the elderly and/or low income are common, only these two states employ this approach to provide tax relief to farmers (Gold 1979). The improvement in the equity of property tax burdens on farm landowners and the preservation of farmland and open space are generally the justifications for reduced farm property taxes (Hady 1970; Hady and Sibold 1974; Stam and Sibold 1977; Dunford and O'Neill 1981). The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effects of specific illustrations of use-value assessment and circuit-breaker schemes on the financial conditions of the farm operator and nonfarm landlord. The illustrative programs are contrasted with market-based assessments by simulating the financial performance of an Illinois grain farm over a ten-year period. In general, previous research on farm property tax relief programs has not analyzed specific farm-level impacts even though farm financial conditions are often the justifications for such programs. Institutional writings, such as Dunford (1980), have documented the details of alternative approaches to farm property tax relief through surveys of state legislation. Early chronicles of state farm tax relief are provided by the Regional Science Research Institute (1976) and by Hady and Sibold (1974). Ladd (1980) evaluates use-value assessments using the standard tax analysis criteria of efficiency, equity, and administrative feasibility. She concludes that use-value assessments are blunt instruments as policy tools with respect to land use decisions, have adverse distributional effects, and are associated with administrative inequities. Researchers have also been concerned about the consequences of farmland property tax relief programs. Deaton and Mundy (1975) and Bevins (1975) describe the expected relationship between reduced farm property taxes and increased farmland values. Schwartz et al. (1975, 1976), in an analysis of the benefits accruing to landowners under California's program, found the present value of tax benefits not to be substantial unless program participation extended to 20 years and beyond. Lockner and Kim (1973) examined two hypothetical farm circuit-breaker pro-

Countries are looking to reduce their agricultural sector's carbon footprint while encouraging economic and environmental sustainability. One proposed method of making agriculture more sustainable while maintaining farm incomes is through the production of bioenergy feedstocks. We examine the spatial aspect of the production of renewable energy feedstocks in Ireland. Two feedstocks are looked at—grass silage and short‐rotation coppice (SRC) willow. Spatial microsimulation analysis is utilised to assess the spatial suitability for alternative land uses, simulating land‐use change to compare economic returns with the current agricultural use. A farm‐based carbon subsidy is modelled based on avoided agricultural emissions and carbon sequestered. We find that midlands counties, especially those in the north midlands, have the highest proportion of land where feedstocks would be more profitable than the current agricultural use. Counties on the western seaboard have the lowest proportion of land where feedstocks would give greater returns. The amount of land where feedstocks are more profitable increases as greater carbon subsidies are provided. Of the two feedstocks assessed, SRC willow cultivation is more profitable than grass silage production. The overwhelming majority of land where producing feedstocks would be more profitable has cattle farming as its current use.

There is not yet a consensus about how to restore the Lower Danube River System (LDRS), and in particular one of its subsystems, the Big Island of Braila (BIB). In this context, the aims of our study were: 1) to identify elements for a cost-benefits analysis of the utilization of BIB, 2) to identify the potential interests of the users, and 3) to provide extra arguments, at detailed level, about the opportunity of performing restoration activities in the Big Island of Braila (BIB). Aims 1 and 2 were approached by mean of desk study (analyses of the existing literature). To reach aim 3 we selected three representative complexes of farms in BIB and identified the types and extent of the activities needed for maintaining the agricultural use of island. The results suggest that the current agricultural use of the BIB is efficient in some parts of the island, but inefficient in the island as a whole. The political preference for the minimal restoration scenario of LDRS, and implicitly the current state of BIB seems to be due to the strong lobbying capacity of the fanners. We identified very large areas in BIB requiring maintenance activities of high complexity and cost. The location of these areas is associated to former channels and lakes, which still preserve part of the reference hydrogeomorphological characteristics. These areas would be most appropriate for restoration, as part of the implementation of a scenario transforming the BIB into a multifunctional farming system, with lakes, forest, and agricultural lands. In the areas located between the dike and the Danube there are still natural and semi-natural ecosystems which could play a favourable recolonization role in case of restoration.

Introduction The Nebraska Farm Real Estate Market Highlights 2021-2022 report represents the 44th edition of the annual series. These reports provide an important insight on agricultural land market dynamics for stakeholders across Nebraska. In today’s market, where market transactions exceeding $1 million dollars are the norm, objective market information and analysis is more critical than ever. The focus of the report continues to be on providing unbiased information for agricultural land values and rental rates so industry participants can make educated and informed decisions. This year, the February 2022 survey of nearly 188 expert panel members from across the state provided current information and insight regarding the agricultural land market conditions in their areas. The panel members have been selected on the basis of being actively engaged in agricultural land markets as certified agricultural appraisers, professional farm managers, agricultural lenders primarily focused on agricultural land transactions, and other professionals engaged in the Nebraska agricultural land industry due to the inherit nature of their positions. The majority of panelists participating in the survey have reported annually for a considerable number of years, which provides valuable historical consistency and context to the agricultural land values and rental rates provided. Based on their knowledge of market activity, reporters provide point-in-time estimates of current agricultural land values and cash rental rates for a variety of land types and classes. Comparing these current measures against previous years’ results provides important trend analysis. The appendix in this report includes: the historical UNL data series for Nebraska agricultural land values dating back to 1978, the agricultural cash rental rate series dating back to 1981, and the USDA historical all-land value series. In addition to the point-in-time estimates, panel members provide details regarding actual sales transactions which have occurred over the previous 12 months. This year, the panel provided information on 734 sales that were considered representative of the recent agricultural land market. This gives insight into the characteristics of recent sales as well as benchmark indicators for studying trends. Changes in the nature of market participants engaged in land transactions from year to year may also be ascertained from evaluating this information.

There is an extensive literature on the incidence of the real property tax. In 1990 Pasha considered the incidence of an exclusive tax on urban land rents. He concluded that such a tax would initially impact on consumers of housing, but that the changes in spending induced by the tax would cause its burden to be shared between consumers and landowners according to the elasticity of substitution between land and other market goods, and the location of the land with respect to the urban margin. This note shows that, in order to impose any burden on consumers, the urban land tax needs to be supplemented by planning controls to prevent consumers on the urban margin shifting to the rural area in order to escape the tax. It also shows that the incidence of the tax between consumers and owners of intra-marginal land depends on the 'travel intensity' of the goods which are favoured by its substitution effects, and that these need to be specified.

The theory of economic growth has emphasized that the capital stock, unlike the labour force, is not an original factor of production but represents the accumulation of past incomes.2 Any analysis of the incidence of a tax on capital income should therefore begin by considering how the tax affects the stock of capital. Although a comparative static analysis with a varying capital stock can be instructive, the process of capital accumulation is represented best by a model of economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to examine how savings behaviour affects the long-run incidence of a tax on profits 3 in a growing economy. The analysis is in terms of a general tax on all capital income but the results are obviously relevant to understanding the incidence of the corporate income tax. With a fixed capital stock, owners of capital would bear the entire burden of a general tax on profits 4 and would avoid some of the burden of a partial tax on capital (such as the corporate income tax) to the extent that capital can shift away from the taxed sector to the untaxed sector without significantly reducing the marginal product of capital in the untaxed sector. Harberger's [4] analysis of such a model has shown that, with reasonable parameter values, the US corporate income tax is borne almost entirely by capital and is therefore quite similar in incidence to a general tax on capital income with a fixed capital stock. The current paper shows that replacing the usual static model and fixed capital stock by a model of a growing economy with variable savings rates substantially alters the conclusions about the incidence of a general tax on profits. For a wide range of plausible parameter values, a substantial fraction of the burden of a general profits tax is borne by labour. The assumption of a fixed capital stock may, therefore, also yield quite misleading conclusions in the analysis of the corporate income tax.

This study investigates the value for titled agricultural land in Uganda using data on 9,185 parcels of land from the 2005/2006 Uganda National Household Survey. Data were analysed using regression techniques. The results showed that land titles had a positive influence on agricultural land prices although the premium was significant for leasehold title as opposed to other forms of title; that except for current agricultural use, traditional determinants of land value such as soil quality, presence of perennials and proximity to the homestead are not significant for agricultural land in Uganda; and that per acre price of agricultural land in peri-urban locations was significantly higher than in rural areas by about 87%. The overlap in land ownership rights for mailo land where two people have claims to the same piece of land, the mailo title holder and the kibanja tenant, placing constraints on its transfer was not reflected in its perceived market price. It was concluded that the current land policy should promote the leasehold system in upcoming cities and peri-urban areas, since this type of tenure opens land to a wide range of users and use-options. The land policy also needs to address the double ownership structure under the mailo tenure which constrains its transferability to make the positive effects of having such titles more significant in the land market. Keywords: Land tenure, premium, Uganda, regression analysis, mailo land

Planners often have only a general notion of the relationship between land use and taxation. Their knowledge is apt to be limited to local real property tax abatement programs for keeping or attracting needed economic development. A few are aware of some state tax laws that differentially assess farmland at its current agricultural use or allow the use of conservation easements to protect open space.

In order to use contaminated soil safely, risk and use planning of contaminated soils by 16 priority polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) in Shenfu Irrigation Area (SIA) were investigated. The toxic equivalency factor (TEF) approach and the risk quotient (RQ) approach were used to assess the carcinogenic risk and ecological risk of PAHs in the current agricultural use, respectively, and the ecological risk of PAHs in SIA under residential, commercial, and industrial land uses which could be used in the future were also evaluated. The results were as follows: 95.9% of soils in SIA were heavily contaminated by PAHs; Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), Benzo[a]anthrancene (BaA), Benzo[b]fluoranthene (BbF), Benzo[k]fluoranthen (BkF), Benzo[g,h,i]perylene, Chrysene, Dibenz[a,h]anthracene (Dba), and Indeno[1,2,3-c,d]pyrene (Ipy) were the dominated carcinogenic PAHs, and there were no carcinogenic concerns for 81.6% of SIA; Anthracene, BaP, Fluoranthene, Naphthalene, Phenanthrene, BaA, BbF, BkF, Dba, Ipyr and Pyrene were considered the major ecological risk drivers, and there were medium to high ecological risks in 56.3% of SIA under agricultural use. However, the ecological risk can be reduced markedly by changing the land use mode; under residential/parkland land use 65.1% of SIA faced low risk and the rest faced negligible risk, while all areas faced negligible risk under industrial/commercial usage. Based on the risk assessment results, an optimum land use model (both human health-based and eco-based in the SIA) was achieved and will be helpful for the local government to plan how to use the land under low risk in the SIA.

<p>Halting and reversing soil degradation as well as protection and sustainable use of soil as a resource are part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the vital significance and essential functions of soil, massive amounts of fertile soil worldwide are lost due to improper land use. In Germany, approximately 66 ha of soil are damaged partly or completely in their soil functions daily. The main issues are soil erosion, land area claims for housing estate and transportation, and pollution. Until now, precise spatial location and assessment of the loss of valuable soil in terms of fertility and productivity has not been quantifiable and therefore not controllable.</p><p>In the SOIL-DE project, indicators to evaluate the functionality, potential, intensity of use, and vulnerability of soils are developed in order to be able to assess the quality and value of soils, both in retrospective and under current agricultural use. The aim of this survey is (i) to detect the loss of land over the past ten years in high spatial accuracy, (ii) to determine the fertility of the soil and (iii) to identify risk areas, i.e. regions with particularly high soil loss rates and high soil profitability. The threat to soil, the fertility and impairment of soil functions by changes in land use, are to be recorded nationwide and statewide. Therefore, the evaluation of time series from satellite images is used in combination with official soil information at different spatial resolution, as well as digital elevation models and climatic data. In this study, different rating systems are investigated including e.g. the Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating (ZALF), biotic potential yield, resistance to erosion, filter, buffer and transformation function, and runoff regulation. First results will be presented.</p>

An open-access method for targeting revegetation based on potential for emissions reduction, carbon sequestration and opportunity cost