Ohio Farm Bureau releases updated Ohio Landowner Toolkit
The new 40-page Ohio Landowner Toolkit contains essential information prepared by Ohio Farm Bureau’s legal team that will help answer questions unique to property owners.
Read MoreThanks to the perseverance of our members and diligent work of Farm Bureau staff, Current Agricultural Use Value reform was made law by the passage of the state budget this summer.
“This outcome was the result of a concerted, three-year effort of lobbying the tax department, legislature and administration,” said Ohio Farm Bureau Executive Vice President Adam Sharp, noting that thousands of phone calls, visits, emails and letters from members from across the state telling their elected officials that CAUV needed to be addressed made a huge impact.
And not a moment too soon.
Statewide, Ohio farmers saw a 307 percent increase in property taxes charged between 2008 and 2014. Those higher taxes were being paid at a time when some farm crop prices had fallen as much as 50 percent and a formula that had worked well for decades started to falter.
“We had the perfect storm,” said Leah Curtis, Ohio Farm Bureau policy counsel. “We had interest rates being held down on a federal level, while we had higher farm prices in the calculation from a few good years and residential values were going down.”
It was at this time that the tax bills for farmland owners were coming due.
“The formula was becoming disconnected from the farm economy,”
Curtis said.
Ohio Farm Bureau took aggressive action starting three years ago to address the CAUV calculations that were drastically increasing some property tax bills for farmland owners. In June, that work got results when Farm Bureau members worked together to reform CAUV property taxes through legislative action.
“It wasn’t easy,” said Yvonne Lesicko, OFBF vice president of public policy. “This was a monumental effort of the entire organization. There were opponents who resisted our every move, but in the end the power of Farm Bureau to organize members and tell their stories directly to lawmakers won the day.”
The reform legislation signed into law by Gov. John Kasich ensured several changes affecting the formula:
• Financial market data used in the calculation is now tied to the farm economy and what happens on
farms, rather than the general financial markets;
• An increase in holding assumptions from five years to 25 years, as most farms are passed down in a family and are owned and operated for more than five years;
• Equity assumptions, previously based on the general federal
interest rate, will now be based on farm-specific equity data from the United States Department of Agriculture; and
• CAUV land used for year-round conservation practices or enrolled in a federal land retirement or conservation program for at least three years, will now be valued at the lowest of the values assigned on the basis of soil type.
The conservation provision was as key as any other provision in the formula, according to Jenna Beadle, OFBF director of state policy.
“Working to remove the tax penalty for placing land in conservation was important for our members,” Beadle said. “Farmers are trying to do the right thing and our tax policy should be supportive of their efforts.”
It is estimated that these new changes, coupled with previous Farm Bureau-led reforms, will result in average savings of 30 percent for 2017 reassessments. The reforms are phased-in over two reassessment cycles – six years – in order to assist local communities and schools as they transition to the more accurate CAUV formula.
“Going forward we’re going to have a CAUV calculation that’s more accurate and more directly related to the farm economy,” Curtis said.
The new 40-page Ohio Landowner Toolkit contains essential information prepared by Ohio Farm Bureau’s legal team that will help answer questions unique to property owners.
Read MoreOhio Farm Bureau, in a partnership with Nationwide, has released a first-of-its-kind ‘Labor Intelligence Report’ and ‘Guide to Finding, Hiring and Retaining Farm Employees’ through their new Ag Intelligence Service.
Read MoreThis first-of-its-kind group focuses on offering more resources to agricultural communities. The group’s first action is introducing a new, anonymous survey to seek feedback directly from rural communities.
Read MoreThe five families honored were the Rethmel family, Todd and Melissa Miller, Julius (Jules) and Jodee Verhovec, Brent and Jenna Clark and the Wickerham family.
Read MoreAs the event wrapped up, ODOT representatives expressed an interest in having Ohio Farm Bureau at the table when future projects are considered.
Read MoreLower, predictable costs and easier administration make it a great alternative to Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans, letting you focus on running your business — not your health plan.
Read MoreMeet Nick and Bailey Elchinger, Brad Weaver and Katherine Brown — Ohio’s young ag professionals contestants who will compete at the American Farm Bureau Annual Convention in Salt Lake City.
Read MoreDepending on what is being burned and where, there will likely be restrictions from either the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency or possibly the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
Read MoreJeffrey Stimmell’s motto: Ag classes can not only be relevant but fun.
Read MoreTwenty Ohio Farm Bureau leaders are serving on the 2023 Ohio Farm Bureau Federation Policy Development Committee.
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