NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Vital Ground Applauds Renewal of
Conservation Tax Incentive
Enhanced incentive for
conservation easements extended
Missoula, Mont - Congress just renewed a tax incentive for private landowners — especially working family farmers and ranchers — who protect their land with a voluntary conservation agreement.
The incentive, which had expired at the end of 2009, now gives conservation-minded landowners until December 31, 2011 to take advantage of a significant tax deduction for donating a voluntary conservation agreement to permanently protect important natural or historic resources on their land. The tax incentive is retroactive to January 1, 2010.
When landowners donate a conservation easement to Vital Ground, they maintain ownership and management of their land and can sell or pass the land on to their heirs, while foregoing future development rights.
The enhanced incentive applies to a landowner’s federal income tax. It raises the deduction a donor can take for donating a voluntary conservation agreement from 30% of their income in any year to 50%; allows farmers and ranchers to deduct up to 100% of their income; and increases the number of years over which a donor can take deductions from 6 to 16 years.
"Our whole community wins when thoughtful landowners conserve their land this way, protecting wildlife habitat, clean drinking water, scenic landscapes, recreational spaces, and productive agricultural lands," said Vital Ground’s Executive Director Gary Wolfe. "Conservation agreements have become an important tool in Montana and nationally for protecting our watersheds, farms and forests, increasing the pace of private land conservation by a third – to over a million acres a year. Vital Ground joins America’s 1,700 land trusts and their two million supporters in thanking Congress for making this important conservation tool available," he said.
"This incentive is a win-win opportunity for family farmers, ranchers, and conservationists in our community," said Douglas H. Chadwick, author, wildlife biologist and chair of Vital Ground’s lands committee. "Such legislation helps guarantee a future with healthy rural lands and wildlife, which is a huge win for America as a whole."
According to the Land Trust Alliance, the national organization that provides a voice for land trusts in Washington, DC, bills to make this incentive permanent have 274 House and 41 Senate co-sponsors from all 50 states, including majorities of Democrats and Republicans in the House. More than 60 national agricultural, sportsmen’s, and conservation organizations support this legislation.
To learn more about the enhanced incentive visit: or www.lta.org/easementincentive.
The Vital Ground Foundation is a tax-exempt, publicly supported charitable organization working to ensure the recovery and long-term survival of grizzly bears, together with the many native species that share their range, through the protection and restoration of core habitats and landscape linkages. Since its founding in 1990, Vital Ground has helped to protect and enhance nearly 600,000 acres of habitat crucial to grizzly and other wildlife in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, and British Columbia.
For more information, call 406-549-8650 or visit www.vitalground.org.
To download a PDF version of this news release, click here.
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