In a recent interview, Levy County Property Appraiser Francis Akins described the agriculture exemption from property tax as the weakest link in the property tax system. The exemption was instituted in the 1930s to protect small farmers from loss of their land. In 2006 the exemption appears to protect large corporate land holders from paying a fair share of taxes. Three corporations stand out that appear to be in possible violation of the Florida Administrative Code which says that a buyer that pays more than three times the agriculture value of land cannot have the agriculture exemption. What follows is based on Levy County Property Appraiser records.
In January 2006, Levy Timberland LLC (Limited Liability Corporation), based in Jacksonville, paid $9,909,000 for 2308 acres of land near Chiefland. The Property Appraiser lists the market value of the land at $5,080,180, but the Agriculture value at $358,601, which results in $9760.46 in property taxes. That is a tax of $4.23 per acre. By either the purchase price or the assessed market value, the agriculture value of the land is exceeded by a factor of between 14 and 27, far beyond the factor of three allowed in the Florida Administrative Code.
In August 2002, Sleepy Creek Farms Inc., based in Goldboro, NC, paid over $12,000,000 for 42 parcels of land totaling about 16,000 acres near Chiefland. Many of the parcels are complete square miles, assessed at a market value of $883,200, with agriculture value of about $100,000 and a tax assessed at about $1800. The resulting tax is about $2.81 per acre. The purchase price was about five times the property agriculture value which is in excess of the amount allowed under the Florida Administrative Code if the exemption is applied.
Plum Creek Timber, Inc., based in Seattle, WA, is the second largest timberland owner in the United States. Plum Creek owns 335 parcels of land in Levy County for a total of 139,000 acres according to Kathy Budinick, speaking for Plum Creek. Levy County records show a purchase price of $42,000,000 in 1999 and the assessed agriculture value is $26,000,000. Plum Creek's tax bill is $448,000 according to Ms. Budinick. That is a tax of about $3.22 per acre.
A leading financial advisory service says that Plum Creek Timber, Inc. operates as a real estate investment trust and is subject to minimal taxes. Currently Plum Creek pays a dividend of 4.7 percent.
The agriculture property tax exemption, created for small farmers, now serves large corporations. The tax burden now falls on small land owners and small businesses. Perhaps the Levy County Attorney and Property Appraiser can find a way to enforce the Florida Administrative Code relative to prices paid for land being protected from taxes by the agriculture exemption. |
