http://www.taxfairnessoregon.org
Tax Fairness oregon;
I applaud your submission commenting on HB 3249 – Establishing an Oregon Agricultural Heritage Fund within OWEB W&M Natural Resources – Jody Wiser – 6.28.2017 Tax Fairness Oregon recommends against HB 3249.
I am suspicious of anything that Rep. Buehler, Bend is associated with. It usually connects with special interest seeking private gain at public expense. Agriculture is written all over this bill but I expect that in the details the aim is to benefit private owners of Designated Forestland.
The issue of Designated Forestland within the city limits of Bend is one that I have taken up. Attached are emails sent to the City Manager. I have had no reply nor do I expect one. The City Manager has the authority to end this tax abuse. It is a complicated assessment but the bottom line is that acerage is assessed at about $75 per acre at a tax rate of about $15 per thousand of assessed value on Designated Forestland the will produce a tree for sale in about 50 years. The money growing on these trees is property value speculation not wood product sale.
I have found the Deschutes County DIAL records to be of great investigation value. They link to overviews which I recently learned are not satellite views of property but taken from aircraft. They link to GIS mapping over which there are overlays and additional overlays for any additional information can be applied.
The city is not a place to grow trees for market sale and be given a substantial tax break for doing so.
This is the type of tax abuse that an Inspector General should investigate. Oregon does not have one except for the Dept of Corrections. Currently there is legislation in Idaho to establish an Office of Inspector General. Oregon should have one. In the absence of that office there are citizen and organization watch dogs but they have no teeth to walk in on any state or local agency, demand records and issue inspection reports with mandatory corrective action.
The next step is going to the City Council and I do not expect any effective action there. This must go to the court of public opinion. When the citizens of Bend discover someone with property within in the city is paying $60 per year on $2 million dollars of RMV land simply because the county assessor approved and application to stock it with trees they will not be happy.
Bend was once a mill town. Now the mill is a shopping area. All the tax breaks that powerful interests once got for forestland they still have for developed land both in the city and on the city boarders. The same powerful interests that were in the forest products business are now in the land speculation and development business still using the old tax rules that benefitted them so well.
Private gain at public expense.
No comments:
Post a Comment