Forest landowner closes roads, trails after state lawmakers cap tax break
September 26, 2012 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
A change in Minnesota tax law for forested land has so angered the state’s largest private property owner that it is blocking hunters and snowmobilers from driving onto land that has been in popular use.
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“I don’t recognize their ownership of that road,” Felix said. “Someone will have to do something about the gate, that’s all. …”
Is this a drag? You bet it is, but lawlessness is not the answer.
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I hope someone from the Sheriff’s office reads this and is waiting at that road for them.
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If Felix were smart, he’d contact Molpus and get an easement to use the road in order to get to his property, I can’t imagine Molpus would be too obstenant towards such a request.
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There not. Called them this morning and told them I had a Potlach lease down one of those roads. They said they were not going to prevent lease or landowners from getting to property, however, you may have to ride an ATV in, Craig Hallia said. Guess you go around gate? Trouble is with us Potlach lease holders, your suppose to remove all your property and equipment by January. Guess that wont happen this year, Ha!
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More Republican good ideas. They are ruining our state. Already shut the government down, which cost taxpayers millions. Raised property taxes by eliminating the homestead tax credit. Now this, when are we going to learn?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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So a company decides to hold outdoors men/women hostage to get a tax break that the people of Minnesota do not get and it is the Republicans fault for treating them like every other tax payer in the state?
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My property taxes went down 1.9% after the elimination of the homestead credit. It turns out I was paying my fair share all along.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Mine went up but, not enough to whine about.
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This landowner is pouting after having an unnecessary tax break. Here-in lies the problem to the political mess created by the special interest groups that have infested and crippled the Democrat and Republican parties: Tax breaks need to be cut (as was done here) and spending needs to be curbed. In addition to tax breaks, the tax code needs a complete overhaul that will include some folks seeing tax increases. All 3 things need to be done (really 2, as tax breaks are part of the tax code). Any neutral economist will tell you this. Sadly, most folks hang their hats on one of the infested perpetrators and blame the other party. And the media (CNN, ABC, Fox, etc) knows that their respective viewers like to blame the other party and creates content for their audiences. Wake up folks!
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If you get rid of these tax breaks where is the incentive for sustainable forestry? Won’t Molpus then be forced to clear-cut to pay these taxes? That is why you can’t apply cookie cutter formulas to every problem. Do you want a Northern Minnesota with massive clear cutting? Is it worth $1.9 million dollars a year to keep an area 1/8 the size of the BWCA protected from clear cutting? That is a huge piece of land.
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The incentive is you don’t just have a one time harvest and then wasteland. Unless the company plans on ceasing to exist, it’s in their own best interests to practice sustainable forestry.
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Not exactly… “Molpus owns timberland in 17 states”… Without buying more land.. they could clear cut 1/3 of the land in a differnt state each year, roughly 90,000 acres in MN, replant it, and by the time it was Mn’s turn again they would have mature 50 year old trees.
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Isn’t that pretty much the definition of “sustainable forestry”?
Cut a portion of the trees, replant, let them grow to a large size and then, cut again?
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Not exactly… “Molpus owns timberland in 17 states”… Without buying more land.. they could clear cut 1/3 of the land in a different state each year, roughly 90,000 acres in MN, replant it, and by the time it was Mn’s turn again they would have mature 50 year old trees.
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You may be right Marv, but be careful with trusting business to do the right thing. If it is a fortuitous situation and the right thing makes financial sense then great. If the wrong thing makes financial sense…
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Additional cutting of trees creates more jobs. Those jobs add to the economy and increase tax payments.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Here is their web site http://www.molpus.com/ These guys are FAR from hurting.
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If they’re concerned about losing this tax incentive, why don’t they do what Potlatch and Blandin have done and lease out parcels of that land? My family pays a Potlatch lease every year for 160 acres… Potlatch still has the authority to log the land, and we can hunt and hike there year-round. It’s a win-win for both parties, and certainly doesn’t hurt Potlatch’s pocketbook.
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What kind of money does it take to lease that much land per year? I’m interested in something like that.
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It really depends on the specific parcel — location, geography, resources… ours is mostly high land, lots of trees with some swampy areas adjacent to state land. We’re paying roughly $2K a year for our 160 acre lease.
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I like that idea. And the price seems fair.
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I assume you get very little leeway in regards to building or altering the land (i.e. putting in trails/atv roads, shacks) correct?
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The Pawlenty administration…. Yep `ol Timmy will fit right in on Wall Street.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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A key passage in the story is that the tax break is capped at $100,000 for any single land owner. Now if the land in question had been owned by several different landowners, such that no single owner was going to get more than the cutoff amount, then every single landowner would get the full amount of the tax break. This then is clearly an effort to penalize large landowners. The full amount of money is apparently available, the state just does not want to pay it out in large amounts. This is legislative gamesmanship, and now we are seeing the results.
Molpus is not big enough to fight the state and so is hoping that the citizens will be energized enough to do the fighting for Molpus.
tom koehler
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It is the companys land, they should be able to restrict access to it especially if the company now only gets $100,000 credit. Why should they allow access and expose themselves to a (or several) multi-million dollar injury claim(s) filed by people crossing or playing on the companys land? There is a very real liability issue here. Previously the benefit (tax credit) would at least pay part of an injury claim, $100,000 won’t come close now.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Republicans never met a tax increase they didn’t like….
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It would be interesting to know just what the tax bill for the land in question is now.
Does the $2 million only cover a portion of what they are paying in taxes or, did it effectively erase the tax burden for that portion of land completely?
Maybe the company should start selling permits to the people that actually want to use their land. I guess I’d rather see the people that are benefitting from the access paying for it, rather than the state.
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This land OWNER, has every right to do this. All these people complaining because they’ve always used this land, do not understand what’s going on: the state gave this landowner a break, IF they allowed the general public to utilize the PRIVATELY OWNED LAND. Now that the benefits of doing so are gone, so are the public’s usage. Don’t like it? Blame yourselves…..YOU elected these politicians with so little foresight to not understand what would happen. Just because you have always used it, doesn’t make it yours……the dreaded “big govt.” gave you the option by paying for it for you, with your tax dollars.
Have fun finding a good hunting spot in the NE of MN in a few years, when private land is closed off, and the land-owners see more profit in mining than in taking govt. tax credits for leaving the land natural and usable.
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Seriously.. A $2 million tax credit isn’t that bad of a deal for everyone in the state to have unlimited access their roads, property, and recreational trails. Just think… you could have the red plan or 160 years of forest access lol
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Have to love all the communists unable to comprehend private property rights.
The tax credit was basically “admission” for people to use the land. Once the state decided to not pay the admission fee, the landowner has every right to close access. This is no different than a movie theater, bar, sporting event. Don’t want to pay? Don’t get to play.
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Why would a soulless cold blooded killer like Bateman not like communists? What about Stalin? Love that movie, Buddy. Anyway for me the issue is the land. These guys probably got it super cheap and it was probably a bad deal for us. I would like to see the state buy it back so we can all protect it and profit from it in a sustainable manner. Don’t know if that is realistic.
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While republicans deserve most of the blame here, democrats including those from northern MN deserve some blame too.
This change was passed during the July state government shutdown. If you remember that fiasco, it was resolved by a handful of priviliged politicians deep in the bowels of the state capitol, completely out of sight of the public and even many legislators themselves. Decisions made with NO public knowledge or input.
And why? Because republicans were so intent on not raising any income for the government, they were turning over every rock to find a few pennies!
In this case I do believe they had some knowledge of the impact ahead of time, but didn’t care. Republicans really don’t believe in public access to land, it’s all best if in private control to them.
A couple of other points that people are getting very wrong. Molpus still has an agreement with the state for access to their lands–they are just unhappy that the payment they were expecting for that access was cut.
So to say it more clearly–they still have a legal agreement with the state! The state did not pull away the total incentive, just a portion of it–although for larger land owners like Molpus, that portion is significant.
Also–closing these roads also prevents vehicle access to a huge amount of public land, state, county etc. land. And to some private landowners who have property accessed down these roads.
So the legal issues are quite complex–one of those landowners could force access in the courts, if they all band together Molpus could be in a bit of trouble.
What they are clearly after is either a restoration of full incentive payment or what I think is more likely–a one time payment for permanent access, like the state did with hundreds of thousands of acres of blandin and forest capital partners land (the former Boise–now owned by Molpus).
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