Now that Tree Farms are all going "Pay-to-play",...

[bobcat]

But please don't say you want rates increased because that rate increase will hit me at $2750 average valuation per acre while it only hits Weyerhauser at $133 valuation per acre.

I'm not sure I, or anyone else said they wanted the rates increased. I know Humptulips was talking about having them pay taxes on what the land is actually worth, instead of the bogus number the counties are apparently using.

Why don't you check and see what your county is charging the timber companies ovèr there. I bet they pay much less per acre than you do.

[bearpaw]

But please don't say you want rates increased because that rate increase will hit me at $2750 average valuation per acre while it only hits Weyerhauser at $133 valuation per acre.

I'm not sure I, or anyone else said they wanted the rates increased. I know Humptulips was talking about having them pay taxes on what the land is actually worth, instead of the bogus number the counties are apparently using.

Why don't you check and see what your county is charging the timber companies ovèr there. I bet they pay much less per acre than you do.

Assessment is a county thing, rates are a state thing. If you change tax rates that effects all land owners in the state, if the county reassesses that only affects whomever is being reassessed.

I'm not sure how to check timber company rates?
Can you look up timber companies taxes online?

[bobcat]

How much tax did they pay on those parcels?

When I looked closer at my tax statement there are 11 different taxes I am being charge for, only one of those is state tax. 

This is for a different parcel, but it's 640 acres, taxable value listed at $73,060, and the last tax payment was on April 26, 2013 and they paid $585.98.

That is for 6 months.

So the annual bill for a 640 acre section of land is just under $1,200.

[bobcat]

I'm not sure how to check timber company rates?
Can you look up timber companies taxes online?

Most counties you can. But I don't know about Stevens.

[bearpaw]

How much tax did they pay on those parcels?

When I looked closer at my tax statement there are 11 different taxes I am being charge for, only one of those is state tax. 

This is for a different parcel, but it's 640 acres, taxable value listed at $73,060, and the last tax payment was on April 26, 2013 and they paid $585.98.

That is for 6 months.

So the annual bill for a 640 acre section of land is just under $1,200.

Good work, we are getting somewhere. Is that for all the taxes or just the state portion of the taxes?

I have one small acreage 22.410 acres (22 1/2 roughly). They have the taxable valuation at about $64,100. My taxes were $567 for the year, $233.50 per half year. But that includes all 11 taxes, the state tax portion was I think $167 per year.

[Special T]

BP is you land divided into 2 seperate tax zones? I looked at buying a houase on 20 acres that had 1 acre in "housing" and the rest in "agricultural forrestry" they had 2 differnt kinds of land values.  If not you may need to look into that. 

[bobcat]

Good work, we are getting somewhere. Is that for all the taxes or just the state portion of the taxes?

I assume it's the entire tax bill. This is from the Thurston County Assessor.

The $585 is what Weyerhaeuser paid the county.

[Humptulips]

BP,
You need to look at this http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=84.33.130 and this http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=84.33.140

Property that has been deemed forestland under RCW.84.33.130 have their property value set at artificially low rates under RCW84.33.140.

It is State law that the maximum tax valuation of timberland is $234/acre. This is not a county problem. The assessors hands are tied by State law.
Most forestland in W WA is valued for tax purposes near$150/acre, not sure about E WA.
Obviously you are paying enough taxes. You are not taking advantage of this tax loophole. Your valuation is being based on actual value. That is not the case with WEYCO or any other tree farm. They get a huge break on taxes that the majority of property owners cannot take advantage of. I have been talking about working on that. It would not affect you. In fact if you have 20/acres you would be a fool not to look into this. Your taxes would go way down.
I've posted those links to the laws in question and nobody seems to be looking at them. Please take the time to look and see what I am talking about.

[Alan K]

Timber land is taxed lightly so long as it's designated timber lands, which is basically dead ground until the timber reaches a harvestable age.  If the landowner designates it as anything else, they have to pay 'catch up' taxes on the increased taxable (market) value you guys are talking about for the previous 10 years.  This works as an incentive for the landowner to keep their lands forested, and slams them with a wall of taxes if they back out for development or whatever else they choose to do with it. 

If anyone owns timber lands just sitting there it should absolutely be designated as timber lands.  You're paying much more than you should be.  If  you change down the road though, you're going to get hit hard.

Removal and Compensating Tax for Classified and Designated Timberland - Designated land is assessed every year as forest land until the assessor removes the classification or the landowner requests removal. Assessors may remove the property from forest land designation if they feel that the property is no longer being managed for forest uses. Designation will also be revoked if the property is sold to a buyer who does not want to use it for forestry. In all cases, the property owner has the right to appeal a removal to the county Board of Equalization.

If the designation is removed either by the assessor or by request of the landowner, the owner may be required to pay a compensating tax to the county. The compensating tax is the difference in taxes between forest land assessment and "highest and best use" assessment, multiplied by the number of years the property has been classified as forest land up to a maximum of ten years.

http://www.timbertax.org/statetaxes/states/proptax/washington/


As the population expands, more and more land is hitting the tipping point where it is more valuable to developers than as forest land. Farming timber is far from the 'highest and best use' for thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of acres. Tax it as though it were, and you'll see much of it sold off.  The forest land designation was brought about I'm sure as an effort to slow the development of timber lands. 

Figure a 40 year rotation yields 30 MBF/acre at a stumpage of $300.  That's a 40 year return of $9000/acre, or $225/acre/year on average.  Hardly a lucrative investment.  Not to mention logging costs and environmental restrictions continually on the rise.  With the increasing size of buffers, dreaded 'occupied sites' being discovered etc., chances are you won't be able to harvest all of the acres you've invested in for four decades. 

Sort of jumped around there, some more things to think about.

[fireweed]

bearpaw--no wonder you are against raising taxes on timberland!  if you have 20+ acres of timberland and paying those prices you are getting screwed by the county. You can bet if Weyco. owned your land they wouldn't be paying that.  I've seen this before, the little guy doesn't know all the tricks or know all the laws and gets hit hard, while the big guy with his teams of lawyers gets all the tax breaks.  There is probably some open ground or something on your land that is putting it into the "full land value" category. I own several timber parcels and for a piece under 20 acres I had to do a forest plan and get approved by the county to become Open Space -Timberland.  My 20 acre parcel is all trees so it is designated timberland.  I pay more in taxes on the value of my well-septic and driveway (improvements) than on my timberlands (about $200).  But taxes are high on my house--we homeowners pay a lot and are subsidizing timberland--ask any county assessor.  This is ok because of the benefits of timber.  But if those public benefits are removed, I see no problem with re-examining the tax break.

[bearpaw]

BP,
You need to look at this http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=84.33.130 and this http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=84.33.140

Property that has been deemed forestland under RCW.84.33.130 have their property value set at artificially low rates under RCW84.33.140.

It is State law that the maximum tax valuation of timberland is $234/acre. This is not a county problem. The assessors hands are tied by State law.
Most forestland in W WA is valued for tax purposes near$150/acre, not sure about E WA.
Obviously you are paying enough taxes. You are not taking advantage of this tax loophole. Your valuation is being based on actual value. That is not the case with WEYCO or any other tree farm. They get a huge break on taxes that the majority of property owners cannot take advantage of. I have been talking about working on that. It would not affect you. In fact if you have 20/acres you would be a fool not to look into this. Your taxes would go way down.
I've posted those links to the laws in question and nobody seems to be looking at them. Please take the time to look and see what I am talking about.

Thanks for the info, I have found that my land is classified as undeveloped land, not as forest land. Tax rates would be lower if it was classified as forest land. I did more checking on the Stevens County website and found that many family members, friends, and neighbors do have forest land as I thought. No doubt this will be a very controversial issue because it involves so many landowners.

Timber land is taxed lightly so long as it's designated timber lands, which is basically dead ground until the timber reaches a harvestable age.  If the landowner designates it as anything else, they have to pay 'catch up' taxes on the increased taxable (market) value you guys are talking about for the previous 10 years.  This works as an incentive for the landowner to keep their lands forested, and slams them with a wall of taxes if they back out for development or whatever else they choose to do with it. 

If anyone owns timber lands just sitting there it should absolutely be designated as timber lands.  You're paying much more than you should be.  If  you change down the road though, you're going to get hit hard.

Removal and Compensating Tax for Classified and Designated Timberland - Designated land is assessed every year as forest land until the assessor removes the classification or the landowner requests removal. Assessors may remove the property from forest land designation if they feel that the property is no longer being managed for forest uses. Designation will also be revoked if the property is sold to a buyer who does not want to use it for forestry. In all cases, the property owner has the right to appeal a removal to the county Board of Equalization.

If the designation is removed either by the assessor or by request of the landowner, the owner may be required to pay a compensating tax to the county. The compensating tax is the difference in taxes between forest land assessment and "highest and best use" assessment, multiplied by the number of years the property has been classified as forest land up to a maximum of ten years.

http://www.timbertax.org/statetaxes/states/proptax/washington/


As the population expands, more and more land is hitting the tipping point where it is more valuable to developers than as forest land. Farming timber is far from the 'highest and best use' for thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of acres. Tax it as though it were, and you'll see much of it sold off.  The forest land designation was brought about I'm sure as an effort to slow the development of timber lands. 

Figure a 40 year rotation yields 30 MBF/acre at a stumpage of $300.  That's a 40 year return of $9000/acre, or $225/acre/year on average.  Hardly a lucrative investment.  Not to mention logging costs and environmental restrictions continually on the rise.  With the increasing size of buffers, dreaded 'occupied sites' being discovered etc., chances are you won't be able to harvest all of the acres you've invested in for four decades. 

Sort of jumped around there, some more things to think about.

Alan K's comments about the timber land tax rate do seem to describe a purpose of the lower timber tax rates. There are a multitude of tree farms in my area, only a few of the largest allow public access, the smaller ones do not. No doubt the public would like to have free public access to all land classified as forest lands but it appears the law currently does not specify landowners with that classification are required to provide free public access. To try and make that change to force forest land owners to provide public access would no doubt create many adversaries.

Property Tax Classifications
There are many types of property use classifications for property tax rates. Perhaps a new classification should be created which is called Recreational Timber Land, to be classified under that classification for the lowest property tax rate you are agreeing to allow free public land access for all types of recreation. This would be the same difference as creating a conservation/recreation easement, I imagine it would take legislative action to create a new classification and that means a lot of lobbying will occur.

[fireweed]

I know one county in Eastern Wash. has that if your land is enrolled in "feel free to hunt" it counts on the public benefit rating system that reduces land taxes in the open space-open space category.  We could do something like that--or only target timber owner with over 5,000 acres for increased values and taxes if they do not provide access.  We taxpayers could also just charge a special tax on the income generated from the fees/leases, that way it would only affect the ones that charge.

[Humptulips]

I know one county in Eastern Wash. has that if your land is enrolled in "feel free to hunt" it counts on the public benefit rating system that reduces land taxes in the open space-open space category.  We could do something like that--or only target timber owner with over 5,000 acres for increased values and taxes if they do not provide access.  We taxpayers could also just charge a special tax on the income generated from the fees/leases, that way it would only affect the ones that charge.

I would think you would have a legitimate argument for this. It seems the asumption was the land was not going to generate any income between harvests of trees. Now they will be going to revenue generated through out the harvest cycle.

[bearpaw]

I know one county in Eastern Wash. has that if your land is enrolled in "feel free to hunt" it counts on the public benefit rating system that reduces land taxes in the open space-open space category.  We could do something like that--or only target timber owner with over 5,000 acres for increased values and taxes if they do not provide access.  We taxpayers could also just charge a special tax on the income generated from the fees/leases, that way it would only affect the ones that charge.

I would think you would have a legitimate argument for this. It seems the asumption was the land was not going to generate any income between harvests of trees. Now they will be going to revenue generated through out the harvest cycle.

Yes that does sound like a reasonable argument to tax the lease income.
One of the issues that bobcat pointed out was the huge reduction in public opportunity. How could a special tax on lease income improve that?

[Humptulips]

I know one county in Eastern Wash. has that if your land is enrolled in "feel free to hunt" it counts on the public benefit rating system that reduces land taxes in the open space-open space category.  We could do something like that--or only target timber owner with over 5,000 acres for increased values and taxes if they do not provide access.  We taxpayers could also just charge a special tax on the income generated from the fees/leases, that way it would only affect the ones that charge.

I would think you would have a legitimate argument for this. It seems the asumption was the land was not going to generate any income between harvests of trees. Now they will be going to revenue generated through out the harvest cycle.

Yes that does sound like a reasonable argument to tax the lease income.
One of the issues that bobcat pointed out was the huge reduction in public opportunity. How could a special tax on lease income improve that?

You probably already know what I feel. Because the property is producing income every year and not just once during the harvest cycle the tax valuation should go up. If you don't lease it the valuation wouldn't go up. If you do it would go up. Provides an incentive in lower tax valuation to keep it open. I gather you don't like that.

Here's another thought I'll throw out there. What about extending the timber excise tax to other income the property produces. Might even try to get that tax money allocated to purchasing public easments to landlocked state land.
I see some difficulties wording that because the timber excise tax is not exclusive to forestland but it might be worth thinking about.