Senate Committee Wants Tax
Break On Land Sales To Feds

WASHINGTON — The Senate Finance Committee is proposing a new initiative in the U.S. Care Act of 2002 that will only serve to increase the amount of private land acquired by the federal government, says the Western Association of State Departments of Agriculture.

Robert Wells of the Alaska Department of Agriculture and president of the interstate association says language in the act allows a 25 percent discount on capital gains tax to private property owners who sell their land to environmental groups or the government.

"This incentive will result in greater acquisition of private property by the federal government through trades or sales made by conservation organizations and further result in the erosion of the tax base in western states," Wells says of the proposed legislation.

Western states rarely realize the total benefit of payments in lieu of tax, he says in a letter to Alaska's Sen. Daniel Akaka. Increased removal of land from the tax rolls will also result in further erosion of rural economies that depend on payments in lieu of taxes.

Wells also says the language in the act confers an unfair advantage on the federal government and conservation organizations over other private parties interested in purchasing private property.

The Alaskan Secretary of Agriculture says his organization opposes the 25 percent discount on the capital gains tax only to those selling land to the government or environmental organizations.

"This bill will result in increased acquisition of private property by the federal government, and it will distort free-market mechanisms for the sale of private property," Wells contends.

In a resolution submitted at their June meeting by New Mexico Secretary of Agriculture Frank DuBoise, commissioners, secretaries and directors of 13 western state departments of agriculture and the territories of Guam and American Samoa note that federal lands comprise 33 percent of the United States while government-owned land comprises only two percent of the world's land area. They also note that U.S. federal lands are 3.5 times larger than the original colonies, 4.5 times larger than the State of Texas and 1.5 times larger than the Republic of Mexico.

(Government land by and large is also the most poorly managed property in the United States, and its mismanagement is a threat to its neighbors. Just ask anyone who lives near a flaming federal forest. This half-baked notion should be buried next to its ideological architect — in Lenin’s tomb. — Ed.)