Re: SG-W:/ use-based tax

["Jeff Surfus" <jeffsurfus@email.msn.com>]

This, on the surface, appears to be good news.  Has anyone done some
analysis of these bills?  Are they the best we can hope for?  Should we be
aggressively advocating for their passage?  More info is definitely needed
but a statewide effort to lobby for its passage should be underway, if it is
indeed a good set of bills.  Perhaps we can get some advice from MEC, but a
use-based tax for farmland would be a HUGE step in the right direction.

Jeff Surfus

----- Original Message -----
From: Vivienne Armentrout <varmentrout000@ameritech.net>
To: smartgrowth-washtenaw <smartgrowth-washtenaw@great-lakes.net>
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 11:53 AM
Subject: SG-W:/ use-based tax


> A press release is available (I don't have a document or online version
> but the phone contact is Gary Henderson, 517-373-1725) about a new
> package of bills coming from the State Senate on use-based tax for
> farmland.  It is not clear to me where these are in the House.  The
> 4-bill package is led by Senate Resolution M (Stille), which would
> require a 2/3 vote and approval by the voters in a referendum, because
> it is a constitutional amendment calling for taxation of farmland at
> current use, rather than highest-and-best.  The other 3 bills are
> tie-barred to the amendment and implement it, as well as providing for
> repayment of tax savings (if land is sold) to an agricultural
> preservation bill, similar to the PA 116 program.  The package hasn't
> been passed by the Senate yet but Engler has endorsed the concept.
>
>
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