Factors influencing forestland enrollment in Georgia's preferential property tax programs

• Published in: Forest policy and economics Vol. 160; p. 103126
• Main Authors: Chhetri, Sagar Godar, Li, Yanshu, Hepinstall-Cymerman, Jeffery, Siry, Jacek, Gordon, Jason
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.03.2024
• Subjects: Conservation Use Valuation Assessment (CUVA); Forest Land Protection Act (FLPA); Intertemporal random utility choice model; Multilevel logistic regression model; Preferential property tax programs; Spatial data; Multilevel logistic regression model; Forest Land Protection Act (FLPA); Conservation Use Valuation Assessment (CUVA); Spatial data; Intertemporal random utility choice model; Preferential property tax programs
• ISSN: 1389-9341; 1872-7050
• DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2023.103126

More than two-thirds of Georgia's private forestland (or 14.6 million acres) are enrolled in one of the state's preferential property tax programs. Besides alleviating property tax burdens for rural landowners, the purposes of these incentive programs have gradually evolved from ensuring a sustainable supply of agricultural and timber products to promoting the conservation of rural open space and provision of ecosystem services. This study examined the factors associated with forestland enrollment in Georgia's major current-use tax programs using a combination of parcel-level spatial data, property tax roll, and county-level economic data for all private forestland in the study counties. A multilevel logistic regression model was used to control the effects of hierarchical data structure. A forest parcel's size, tax savings, neighboring parcel enrollment, land value, land productivity, landowner's residence status in relation to the property, development potential (e.g., distance to cities, county population density) as well as distance to lakes and identified conservation areas are important predictors of its likelihood of being enrolled in the property tax incentive programs. Larger forest parcels, located close to identified potential conservation areas, characterized by high soil productivity, held by non-absentee owners, and adjacent to enrolled parcels were more likely to be enrolled in the current-use tax programs. •The majority of Georgia's forestland was enrolled in the state's preferential property tax incentive programs.•Characteristics of land and landowners, and land context affected a parcel’s enrollment in Georgia’s current-use programs.•A multilevel logistic regression model was used due to the hierarchical structure of the data.•An intertemporal random utility model was developed to demonstrate forest landowners' decision on program enrollment.•Spatial layers were overlayed with the tax roll to get parcel-level variables on amenity values and development influences.