Seeking tax relief

In the current economy, many people find themselves looking for ways to keep down expenses, and one of the first things to come to mind is the property tax bill. All the states and the District of Columbia recognize that there are times, especially as homeowners age and have to live on reduced incomes, when property tax relief on homes should be supported. In fact, there is not a single state that does not have some sort of relief program available, according to  Significant Features of the Property Tax,  the free online property tax database.
     The most common type of tax reduction for homes is exemption of part of the value of the property from the property tax, in place in 45 states. In many states this option is available for all residential property, regardless of the age or personal income of the taxpayer; others limit this relief based on age and income.  Other common provisions are the deferral of taxes until property is sold (28 states) a tax bill credit (25 states) and a circuit breaker, or reduction based on taxpayer income (34 states).
     Most states actually offer a variety of forms of residential relief, starting with a basic exemption with limited taxpayer qualifications, and increasing in amount with the circumstances of the taxpayer: age, income, and special circumstances such as disability and veteran/military service status. Massachusetts and Maryland have the greatest number of programs, which include such options as tax credits for volunteer work, a tax credit for proximity to the airport, and a renters’ tax credit. The state with the most basic approach is Kentucky, which limits residential tax relief to a freeze in assessed value for taxpayers 65 and over or who are disabled.
     All these facts were assembled using the Significant Features database, established in partnership with George Washington University and continually updated. For more information on property tax relief -- including some approaches that can have unanticipated, undesirable results, and property tax relief programs that states might best avoid -- visit the subcenter homepage where visiting fellow Andy Reschovsky provides some answers; explore the database to find out what your state is doing; and review the residential relief topic on the site.

Funding for land

     It has been estimated that new funding and tax incentives in excess of $5 billion per year will be needed over the next 30 years to conserve an adequate network of important landscapes across the United States. In a recent USA Today article quoting senior fellow Armando Carbonell, land trusts are getting part of that job done. But new strategies are being examined for more creative use of philanthropic dollars, in an era of declining public funding and volatile financial markets.
     Jay Espy, named last year as a Kingsbury Browne Fellow at the Lincoln Institute, will discuss work he and recent Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies graduate, Gina Schrader, have been conducting over the past year to research effective practices in land conservation and conservation funding, this Thursday Dec. 1 at Lincoln House. The goal of this project is to help improve the funding practices of foundations currently supporting land conservation and to attract more philanthropic dollars by providing information that facilitates the entry of new philanthropic investors into the arena. In the presentation, part of the continuing fall lecture series (free but registration required), Espy will share stories about conservation projects in the northeastern US to illustrate findings of the study.
     Espy is executive director of the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation, a grant making foundation focused on animal welfare, the environment and human well-being, primarily within the state of Maine. Prior to joining the Sewall Foundation in 2008, he served for two decades as president of Maine Coast Heritage Trust, a state-wide land conservation organization, where he oversaw conservation efforts all along Maine’s coast, including the protection of more than 125,000 acres and establishment of the Maine Land Trust Network which helps build capacity of local land trusts throughout Maine.

Smart growth under pressure

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development recently awarded $97 million in grants associated with the Sustainable Communities program to cities and regions, sowing the seeds of smart growth across the country, nicely detailed recently by NRDC's Kaid Bainfield. But while other programs for transit and neighborhood development were spared, according to New Urban News, the modest $100 million for the Partnership for Sustainable Communities was eliminated in the House-Senate "minibus" budget for 2012, which President Obama signed. And now that the deadline for a supercommittee agreement has past, triggering automatic cuts, the president's sustainability program, based in the partnership of HUD, the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency, seems unlikely to survive unprecedented cutbacks in discretionary spending.
     So just as the Sustainable Communities program was getting started, it may be gone before more metropolitan regions can take advantage of it. Undaunted, however, leaders from around the New England region will participate in Putting Sustainability into Practice, the annual New England Smart Growth Leadership Forum, Friday, December 2, 2001 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Ron Sims, former HUD Deputy Secretary, will be the lunchtime keynote speaker.
     The goal of the annual forum, sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in partnership with EPA, HUD, and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, is to bring together New England’s leaders from governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, and the private sector who play a critical role in shaping growth in New England, provide an opportunity for participants to share information about successes and challenges in smart growth, and to learn from national experts about advances in the field.
     Speakers will include Armando Carbonell, Senior Fellow and Chair, Department of Planning and Urban Form, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; Barbara Fields, Regional Administrator, US Department of Housing and Urban Development; Curt Spalding, Regional Administrator, US Environmental Protection Agency; Mary Beth Mello, Regional Administrator, Federal Transit Administration; Chris Jones, Vice President for Research, Regional Plan Association; Ryan Pelletier, Director of Workforce Development, Northern Maine Development Commission; Tim Beatley, Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, University of Virginia; Lyle Wray, Executive Director, Capitol Region Council of Governments; Tim Brennan, Executive Director, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission; Bonnie Nickerson, Director of Long Range Planning, City of Providence, RI; Doug Farr, President and CEO, Farr Associates; Marc Draisen, Executive Director, Metropolitan Area Planning Council; and Christine Walker, Executive Director, Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission.

From fisheries to cap-and-trade: resource management and property rights

In the social science literature on the so-called "tragedy of the commons," only a few forms of property rights are idedntified as appropriate for the effective use and conservation of resources, which will otherwise be overexploited. But in fact, diverse property systems have evolved organically to address the use of scarce natural resources. These systems -- from California’s 1849 gold rush to the fisheries off the shores of Iceland today -- are explored in a new book,  Property in Land and Other Resources ,  co-edited by Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom and Daniel H. Cole, both of Indiana University. There's also a foreword by Nobel Laureate Douglass C. North.
    Over the past several years, much has been written about property rights in land and natural resources by scholars across disciplines including economics, political science, history, and law. This book, based on a 2010 Lincoln Institute conference, begins with a chapter by Thráinn Eggertsson, who examines property rights institutions and the environment using six case studies from his native Iceland, where relatively simple and transparent institutions build on social norms and practices and have general applicability. Dependence on fishing, for example, has led to a system of licenses and quotas that limit harvests and maintain stocks.
    The topics addressed in the other chapters and accompanying commentaries include: the nature and variety of existing property systems; new thinking about the California gold rush; the role of psychological entitlement in property allocation; evolving property regimes governing fisheries; the evolution of zoning; attributes of property regimes governing water resources; the nature of property rights in tradable pollution permits; how regulations sometimes create property; and mechanisms for ameliorating property conflicts that arise from the presence of endangered species on privately owned lands.
    The book concludes with a look at climate change as the ultimate “tragedy of the commons” and suggests how developed countries could devise and agree on a system for taking in immigrants from nations inundated by rising seas.

A new look for our Web site

    The homepage at http://www.lincolninst.edu/ has been redesigned to allow quicker access to books, reports, working papers, free databases, ongoing research projects, Land Lines, Lincoln Institute in the News, and the At Lincoln House blog. The Pressroom/Information and Lectures & Videos pages have also been redesigned, for viewing of original short videos and selected lectures. Streamlined navigation will facilitate the user experience.
    The new pages, launched this morning, are powered by a new content management system (CMS), DotNetNuke, and were developed by Interactive Factory, part of the RDW Group.