Bill aims for tax relief

Maryland farmers could be protected

Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008

The bill, introduced in the House of Delegates by Del. Sue Kullen (D-Calvert), would exclude working agricultural property from the assessment of estate taxes if the inheritor signed an agreement promising to keep the property in farmland. The estate tax could be recovered later if the person who made that agreement converted the property from agriculture within 10 years.

Tommy Briscoe, 50, said he had to sell the development rights from his farmland to pay estate taxes, an option his children won’t have when he passes the farm on to them.

Assessing farmland at the market rate can make farming prohibitive ‘‘because what you pay off the taxes is like buying the farm if you inherit it. It’s so high, the appraisals are so high, you can’t afford to pay the taxes on it,” Briscoe said.

The Broomes Island farm has been in his family for at least four generations. Previously a tobacco farmer, he now grows corn, wheat and soybeans on his 250 acres.

Farmer Susan Hance-Wells said estate tax relief is needed because a current provision exempting estates under $1 million doesn’t go far in protecting farmland.

‘‘If you’re $1 million and 5, you have to pay at a $1 million and 5, not just the $5 that’s over the exemption,” Hance-Wells said.

‘‘Some of these big houses, they’ll come up to a million dollars, so you know what farmland is going to do, even if it’s in preservation. The problem we’re having is that some of the agricultural land is appraised just as high as for residential use, so it’s really in demand now and so being in agricultural preservation doesn’t necessarily help us.”

Hance-Wells was not going to be able to make it to Annapolis today, Feb. 13, to testify in favor of the bill, but said she would submit written testimony to ask lawmakers to enact the bill.

‘‘It’s really going to go a long ways towards helping preserve the family farm,” Hance-Wells said. ‘‘You might be able to preserve the land, but if you haven’t preserved the industry you haven’t accomplished much. This is a very important step that Maryland can take.”

Hance-Wells said the bill was born two years ago at the Calvert County Farm Bureau’s annual legislative dinner, when she raised the issue and ‘‘Kullen took it to heart.”

‘‘It’s a good bill for farmers. We’re working it really hard,” Kullen said.

But she acknowledged that getting it passed could be difficult.

‘‘It’s a good bill for Calvert County and we’re hoping to get it on the radar screen of leadership.

‘‘But as much as people don’t have an appetite for increasing taxes, they don’t have an appetite for decreasing them, either.”

Calvert County Farm Bureau President Walt Wells referred questions to Hance-Wells, but at a farm bureau dinner in January, Wells asked legislators for estate tax relief: ‘‘This situation hit Sue’s and my farm, Tommy Briscoe’s farm and it really puts a burden on you,” Wells said at the dinner. ‘‘You have to sell something so dear to you to survive. Estate tax is a killer.”

emitrano@somdnews.com