Farmers May See Tax Increases

Farm­ers here in north­west Ohio may soon find them­selves hit with a big tax bill. The Bryan Times reports, it’s all because of a com­plex for­mula, called Cur­rent Agri­cul­tural Use Value, that was orig­i­nally designed to save farm­ers money on their taxes. It was orig­i­nally set up back in the 1970’s, and fac­tors in such things as soil type, mar­ket prices of crops, and inter­est rates to make sure the land is taxed at a fair rate as farm­land. Until now, it’s worked out pretty well for farm­ers. But now, because the value of some crops is increas­ing, while inter­est rates remain low, land val­ues are ris­ing, and that is caus­ing a rise in tax val­ues. If crop prices stayed sta­ble, it would prob­a­bly all work out. Unfor­tu­nately, that usu­ally isn’t the case. The ohio Farm Bureau Fed­er­a­tion is still how­ever, back­ing the for­mula, say­ing that it has worked pretty well for the past 40 years, and when every­thing sta­blizes, it will still be the best thing for farm­ers. They do admit how­ever, that in the interim, some farm­ers are going to get hit with very high, and unex­pected tax bills. The Farm Bureau hopes that changes can be made by the end of the year, so that they will affect taxes paid in 2016.