Any tax breaks for landowners in NY????

[eddiee]

I own 49 acres in Chautauqua county ny. My tax bill went from 300$ to $700 and that's only the school taxes. We only have 15' of road frontage on vacant land (35 wooded 14 field). Do you know of any tax breaks?????? Help??

What if i plant some trees and call it a tree farm?? Then i would have a farm/business? I belive i could write a portion of my taxes off and pruchases for the farm???
EDDIE

Edited by - eddiee on 09/08/2002 18:56:25

[CatskillHuntr]

I also own vacant land, and just received my school tax bill as well....mine went from $1100 to $1380....

This is absurd!!! No house on the land, no kids, and I do not even reside in the county....

[billybobby]

that's because your taxes are supporting the crackheads and daytop centers common to depressed upstate NY areas.

[Rodsmith]

Look into the tree farm idea. My old boss bought property just south of the Dacks and turned the land into a tree farm. I guess if you are planting trees you could also plant clover, rye grass and a multitude of other horn producing items. Get the attachments for the ATV and write the whole mess off, trip up to maintain it as well.

[SnowyOwl]

Here's a little known fact:

Approximately 60% of all assessments are too high. This is because people usually don't bother to check, so they can get away with it.

Go see your assessor on grievance day, usually in May sometime. They tax you at different rates for wooded land, tillable, waste land, etc. We got ours lowered a few years ago by convincing him that our fields were wasteland, since they hadn't been in production since we moved here. We're letting them grow up to good deer habitat.

Also, if you're not getting the STAR exemption, see if you can sign up for it. I'm not sure if it applies to vacant land, but we saved over $500 this year with it.

As for your tree farm idea, I believe you can plant them for about 5 years and take the write offs, but then you have to start selling them. The IRS gives you 5 years to start making money before they consider it a hobby and make you pay back all the write offs you took the previous years. Talk to your accountant, he can probably tell you what's required.

[Phlogiston]

If you own a home on the land, you can separate the undeveloped part and call it a "homestead" which can lower your taxes.

Declaring your land "forever wild" may also help.

I don't know the details of these two options, so not sure if they really work.

Hunting is a right, treat it like a priviledge - respect nature

[Deleted User]

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[Denny]

A friend of mine put some trails on his and told me he got one.No one knows about them so no uses them.If I understood him right that will give you something.