—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 9, 1973
8
Farm Calendar
Sunday, June 10
NEPPCO Egg Quality School,
Quality Inn, Towson, Md,,
June 10 - 13.
Tuesday. June 12
7 30 p.m. - Farm and Home
Foundation meeting, Farm
and Home Center.
Northeast Egg Marketing
Association Board of Direc
tors quarterly meeting,
Syracuse, N Y. ,
Wednesday, June 13
Tam -3pm.- 1973 Wool Pool,
Reading Fair Grounds.
10 a m. - 4-H Strawberry Exhibit
and Roundup, Farm and
Home Center.
Ipm - Pennsylvania Poultry
Federation Annual meeting,
Sheraton Motor Inn,
Harrisburg
7:30 p m - Red Rose 4-H Beef and
Lamb Club recreation night.
Manheim Memorial Park.
8 pm. - Nema Directors, State
Committeemen meet,
Syracuse, N.Y., June 13-14.
Thursday., June 14
9am- 4-H Dairy Cattle Judging,
Arthur Brenneman farm,
Willow Street.
1 p.m. - 4-H Dairy Cattle Judging,
Ken Rutt farm, Quarryville.
Friday, June 15
Deadline for 4-H Dairy Roundup
Registration.
Saturday, June 16
:30 p.m. - Ephrata Young
Farmer Strawberry Social,
John R. Zimmerman farm.
30 p.m. - Lebanon County Dairy
Princess Festival, Lebanon
Expo Fair Grounds.
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Farm Tax
be very wide. For tarmiand
farther away from the city, the
differential would be smaller.
The important thing to note,
though, is that under H 81056, the
farmer along Route 30 and the
farmer in Drumore Township
would be paying the same tax
rate.
Under the ten-year contract
4-H'ers Invited
To Test Dairy
Judging Skills
Two practice judging sessions
have been arranged for any
Lancaster County 4-H Dairy Club
members who want to sharpen
their skills at evaluating dairy
cattle.
The first session will be con
ducted on Thursday June 14. The
group will leave the Farm and
Home Center at 9:00 a.m. to go to
the Arthur Brenneman farm in
Willow Street. At 1:00 p.m. they’ll
be at the farm of Ken Rutt in
Quarryville, and tfaey'll return to
the Center by 4:00 p.m.
On Wednesday June 20, a group
will leave the Farm and Home
Center at 9:15 a.m., to go to the
John Kreider Farm, Willow
Road, Lancaster. From there
they’ll go to Lititz to the farm of
Jesse Balmer, and again they’ll
return to the Center by 4:00 p.m.
All dairy club members are
welcome to attend, and they
should bring their own lunch.
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(Continued From Pane 1)
397-3539
prescribed by the bill, a farmer
would still be able to sell his land.
If he sold it to another farmer, to
someone who agreed to keep the
land in agricultural use, there
would be no penalty. If the land
were sold to a developer, though,
the farmer would have to pay
back all the tax money he saved
during the first years of his
contract, plus he’d have to pay a
five percent penalty on the
projected tax for the years
remaining on the contract.
For example, say a farmer
signed a contract in 1975, and
let’s say that his tax bill, under
the contract is $lOOO a year. And
let’s say further that without the
contract, his tax bill would be
$lO,OOO a year. He’s saving $9OOO a
year in taxes.
If he decides in 1980 that he’d
like to sell after all, he can break
the contract, but he’ll owe 5x59000
or $45,000 for the five years in
which he was being taxed at the
special rate. He’ll also owe
compound interest at the rate of
five percent from the time of cha
nge up to the ten-year com
mitment, on the amount not paid
in each of the preferentially
taxed years. In the example, this
would mean paying five percent
on $9OOO for the five year period
from 1980 to 1985, or a total of
$2486 in interest. This money
would be due at the time of the
sale.
Contracts would be renewed
each year. A farmer could get out
of his contract without any
penalty by giving ten years
notice. During those ten years,
though, he would pay taxes at the
regular rate.
“One thing we tried to avoid,”
Kennedy noted, “was the
creation of another state
bureaucracy here in Harrisburg.
If this bill passes, we want the
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countys to handle the job of
deciding which land qualifies for
preferential taxation. I feel the
local governments would be
much better at that job than we
would be.”
The bill says that each county
would have a commission to say
whether or not a certain piece of
land fell within the provisions of
the law. This commission would
be composed of the county tax
assessor, a school director ap
pointed by the county com
missioners, and an individual
whose income is derived mostly
from farming, appointed by the
county conservation district.
Kennedy said the bill was
designed to have some teeth in it
to curtail land speculation, and
he’s hoping that the final act isn't
too much different from HB 1056.
“New Jersey passed a
preferential tax law, and it
turned out to be a haven for
speculators,” Kennedy said.
' “The only penalty they had was a
two-year tax rollback. That
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wasn’t enough to deter anybody,
and it gave the speculator a tax
break all the time he held the
land. In other states, California,
Washington, Hawaii, New York,
stronger laws have been tried
and they’re generally working.
We’re trying to avoid their
mistakes, though.”
One thing Kennedy stressed
over and over was that his
committee’s bill provides for
strictly voluntary agreements
between farmers and county
governments. “We haven’t tried
to dictate to anybody how his land
is to be used, and we haven’t tried
to prevent him from selling his
land if he wants to. All we’re
trying to do is to make it possible
for a farmer to farm his land
without having to pay an im
possible tax bill.”
HB 1056 is presented below in
its entirety for those who might
want to familiarize themselves
its provisions before attending
the public meetings.
continued On Page 29
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