New timber tax law

[Frank_Pender]

    I am not familiar on how to reference a site in a magazine, but here goes.  I was just reading in my latest Forest Products Equipment journal about a new timber tax law going into affect this last Jan. 1.  This law may well affect some recent years tax issues for some of us with timber lands.  The publication date is the April 2005 issue:  Volume 13, Number 8 page 37.  This law was pormoted and pushed by the National Small Woodlands folks, among others.

[caryr]

Hi Frank,

Are you talking about the changes implemented by HR 4520 or something else?

Regards,

Cary

[Frank_Pender]

Cary this is/was part and parcel of the American Jobs Creation Act (AJCA)  That President Bush signed bact in Oct. of 2004.  This all stemmed fromn IRS 631 (b) of the IRS code.   "The fourth timber-realted section is the one that will have the greatest impact on private forest owners.  It allows a froest-owning business to sell timber without "retaining an economic interest," or a timber investor to have frequent lump-sum sales without risking lon-term capital gain status.   Finally, timber businesses, and even frequent sellers of timber, can use lump-sum sale methods with impunity."

[caryr]

We are talking about the same thing, HR 4520 is the AJCA and the 631 (b) modifications are a piece of it. I also found the changes to expensing of reforestation costs to be of interest. FYI www.timbertax.org is a useful site for tracking national forest tax issues.

Cary