Wealthy landowners such as Walt Disney and U.S. Senator Bill Nelson save huge amounts on their property taxes by using the "rent-a-cow" tax loophole. Disney reportedly saved himself $1.5 million and Senator Nelson saved $43,000. The state of Florida loses an estimated $950 million per year to residents taking advantage of the flawed tax code.
Before you get too excited and start packing to move to Florida, understand the tax loophole does not apply to residential property. You can't buy or rent farm animals and put it in your back yard to reduce your property taxes.
Instead, rich real-estate developers such as the likes of Donald Trump rent the cows to graze on the property they buy while waiting to start building. There is no evidence that The Donald takes advantage of the tax loophole, but there is also no evidence that a smart business person like him would NOT take advantage of it.
Having cows around enables the developers to buy land cheaply, get a huge tax break while waiting for the best time to begin development. Some developers continued to receive the tax break even after construction started!
The official name for the "rent-a-cow" law is the greenbelt law. It originated in 1959 and was put in place to save agricultural land from real-estate developers. Strangely enough, those whom the law was put in place to fight are the ones who ended up taking advantage of it. Just goes to show that every law that begins with good intentions almost always has a way for someone to abuse it or ruin it.
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Comments: 28
Who would have guessed there was such a loop hole. Hope they get that one ironed out soon.
So, they aren't too dumb. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkZy4yChJkU&feature=related
And everything is green.
I live in Colorado and you have to water and fertilize and baby your grass to get it to grow and remain green. It's a pain in the ass.
You two should start a mutual "I Love Cows Club", who knows, it could go viral.
It is not being used as it was intended.
Rich people are the ones who take advantage of the vagueness and use it as it was not intended; thereby taking advantage of a loophole in the tax code.
I say "rich people" because I don't know any poor or middle-class real estate developers.
No, I don't think the government should just "get" rich people's money. I think people buying land for real estate development should pay the assigned rate and not take advantage of a law that was clearly not intended to do what they are having it do. They will make money on their investment in the long run or they wouldn't be doing it in the first place.
No, they shouldn't pay "more". They should pay the rate assigned.
I don't know if this law is the exception, but the overwhelming majority never have the intent included, nor do they have a perfromance requirement that causes the laaw to be sunset if perfromance requirments aren't met. I believe eevery law should have include in the law a description of what the laaw is to achieve, measure to determine if the purpose is being achieved, and a built in end to the law when it is no longer meeting those measures of achieve the purpose. In this case when the law was no longer encourgaging real agricultural purpose then the law/exemption to the taxes should have ended and the exemption eliminated.
Whenever the purpose/intent of the law is not specifically included that opens it up to interpretation. Whenever a law is forced confirmed or reautorized on a regualr basis, it will more than likely have it interpretation changed of time and not be achieving the intial intent.
I ask about the 'rich' because that seems the target in a campaign season, and I just like to see who I am speaking with and get a sense of where they are coming from.
This being at the state level, I wanted to keep partisan politics and national politics out of it. I did bring up Trump's name though -- but only because he is a wealthy real estate developer and I have read a couple of his books -- I know how screwed a businessman he is and he has a lot of real estate in Florida.
On the national level -- I am a Democrat and more on the side of the 99% than the 1% -- but I think there should be a flat income tax. Everyone pays the same percent, no loopholes, nothing to argue about.
The states, of course, can still make their own tax laws but there should be some limit imposed on them as well so they can't tax their citizens to death.
I believe in equal opportunity, freedom of choice and responsiblity for the subsequent cnsequences.
Tax laws seem to be written for all, only a smaller group are more active in using them. That is a choice. If we diagree with the law then work on changing the law, not on focusing on the people actively and legally conforming to the law.
As for Trump, I would not be interested in having lunch with him, even if he were buying, but as long as he is within the law then that is what the legilators chose as acceptable. I can't say whther they fully thought it through but that is what they wrote.
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2011/07/is_rick_scott_americas_worst_g.php
If you've got a problem with it, it's entirely your own.