Although most responses to updating the MFL have been positive or neutral, there has recently been some opposition by the general public. Comments made include “this is just another big tax break for wealthy landowners which then puts a bigger burden on us other taxpayers” and on specific bill elements such as the proposal to allow landowners to close more than 160 acres, it will “prevent the little guy from being able to buy land because someone with money will buy it all up and close it.”
WAFO has contacted the reporters who wrote articles in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other outlets to express concern that their articles did not accurately describe the bills, nor did they recognize the need to update laws that limit the ability of landowners to retain forest lands.
To respond, we provided Representative Jeff Mursau, the author of AB 561, with the following:
“To say that only large, wealthy, landowners are using the MFL to get a big tax break is not accurate. According to the Dept. of Revenue there are 3,271,000 acres of land enrolled in the MFL with an average parcel size of 30 acres. Smaller landowners are the dominate owners of the 2,200,000 acres with the larger landowners owning about 1,100,000 of these acres.
To characterize the MFL as being a huge tax break, one needs to compare the tax rates being paid on the 12,100,000 acres of more intensively managed agricultural crop lands which averaged $3.17/acre in 2015, a tax rate 1/3 that of the taxes paid on MFL lands enrolled since 2005.
Additionally one needs to look at the fact that forested land requires a very small amount of services from local governments — road maintenance, fire and police protections. Studies have shown that the cost to local governments to service forested lands is between $1 and $3 per acre.
In reality, woodland owners who now pay $10.68/acre in property taxes under the MFL are, in fact, still subsidizing other property owners who pay a proportionately less tax because of them.
Additionally, it needs to be noted that it is important to have a property tax scenario that allows landowners to maintain forest cover rather than see it be converted to other more intensive agricultural uses or to residential development which demands many more services from local governments.
There are also 4,000,000 acres of productive forest land that is not enrolled in the MFL. Clearly many landowners do not wish to enroll their forest lands in a state program to save, on average, $25 per acre in property taxes. However, a tax savings like that is still important to smaller, less wealthy family forest owners.”
Landowners need to continue to contact their legislators to let them know that they are supportive of AB 559, which rescinds the ban on leasing and on the need to update the MFL to make it a more attractive alternative.