Owners of agricultural land would see lower property taxes under two bills heard by the Revenue Committee Feb. 19.<\/p>\n
Currently, agricultural and horticultural land is valued at 75 percent of its actual value. LB293, introduced by Scribner Sen. David Schnoor, would decrease valuation to 65 percent of actual value for agricultural and horticultural land.<\/p>\n
Schnoor said that his bill would address the challenge of skyrocketing agricultural and horticultural land valuations.<\/p>\n
\u201cEconomies are fluid; the only constant is change,\u201d he said. \u201cThe agricultural industry is subject to change in perhaps a more dramatic manner than most industries. [LB293] would create a more stable source of funding going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
An identical proposal was introduced by Bancroft Sen. Lydia Brasch as LB350, which she said would realign the property tax burden.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are out of alignment and our collective responsibility to share the tax burden has shifted to farmers,\u201d she said. \u201cThis represents meaningful, responsible, significant and fair tax relief.\u201d<\/p>\n
The current acceptable range of taxation of 69 to 75 percent would decrease under both bills to 59 to 65 percent.<\/p>\n
The bills also would decrease the current adjusted valuation for school state aid from 72 percent to 62 percent, decreasing total aid by $13.5 million in fiscal year 2017-2018 and $14 million in FY2018-19.<\/p>\n
Nebraska Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson testified in support of the bills, saying they would provide targeted tax relief by treating farmers and ranchers equally statewide.<\/p>\n
\u201cFarmers and ranchers located in counties with a low percentage of agricultural land\u2014counties that are often at their levy limit\u2014end up paying higher taxes than their more rural counterparts,\u201d he said. \u201cReducing taxable values to 65 percent would target tax relief where it is most needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robert Johnston, representing the Nebraska Soybean Association, also spoke in favor of the bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last two or three years [farming and ranching] have been very profitable, but high land values and valuations do not guarantee profitability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Platte County Assessor Tom Placzek opposed the bills, saying they would not lead to measurable tax relief.<\/p>\n
\u201cI and many of my [county assessor] colleagues feel [the bills] will not really achieve anything,\u201d he said. \u201cUrban tax districts won\u2019t be affected because they don\u2019t have any farm land and rural districts won\u2019t really be affected because there is very little to no residential property to shift the tax burden to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Renee Fry, executive director of the OpenSky Policy Institute, also testified in opposition. She said the bills would result in significant revenue losses for municipalities.<\/p>\n
\u201c[LB293 and LB350] would result in a $138.5 million shortfall for Nebraska\u2019s localities,\u201d she said. \u201cRevenue losses will likely lead to cuts to services or higher property taxes for many Nebraskans.\u201d<\/p>\n
The committee took no immediate action on the bills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Owners of agricultural land would see lower property taxes under two bills heard by the Revenue Committee Feb. 19. Currently,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[141],"class_list":["post-16447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-revenue","tag-sen-david-schnoor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16447"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16638,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16447\/revisions\/16638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}