Agricultural Land Designation

[fernwood2009]

HI,

Was wondering if anyone out there has an agricultural designation on the land they tap? The only things most of my land was used for over the past 100+ years was cow pasture, crops, and maple syrup. I read in the WI Dept. of Revenue booklet on Ag use Designation that in 2009 having 9 taps per acre was considered an agricultural use if the resulting syrup was sold.

Had brought up the idea to a past assessor who told me that maple syrup was not an ag product, so the land could not be considered agricultural. Now I know better and there is a different assessor.
It would be great to have the land assessed based on its only use instead of what someone thinks it is used for.

Any past experiences with this would be appreciated.

[forkhornhanson]

hi, thanks for asking this question fernwood. We are in the process of selling all our cattle on our land and i was worried we would lose our ag status. I asked a few people about using syrup to maintain our ag status but could not find any one that knew much about it. We already tap every year so it would be an easy fix. Hope you get some replys.

[Rhino]

Fernwood, A month ago we bought a 60 acre woods that we have tapped for years and the guy decided to sell it. The taxes on it were $1100 total. When the papers were signed I called the assessor and told him we tap this woods and would like to put it in a ag tax bracket. He said no problem, asked for the legal description, and estimated the tax would be cut in half. All our other woods are in managed forest law so this was the first time I dealt with this, but seemed really easy. Buddy of mine in Thorp has people that let him tap their woods just so they can get a tax break. The assessor might ask how many acres are being tapped? good luck

[Ahnohta]

last year we got 10 acres of our 27 acre classified for Ag. Maple Syrup is the Ag. product we sell. It is in the Wi tax code somewhere at so many taps, per acre can be classified as Ag.

[fernwood2009]

HI,

Thanks for the responses. I am prepared to meet with the assessor. The DOR book also said to document that you actually tap trees. I have photos of all of the tapped trees with landmarks which will make it easier to see where they are. Many of the trees have signs of up tp 25 previous tapping holes, if needed as physical evidence (I could have Photoshopped the photos I took and not really tapped the trees). Also took photos of the storage tank, boiling pan in action, final processing, and the finished product. Some opf my land is in different parcels. The 1 acre parcel had 15 taps this year. Production was very good there, mostly 50+ year old soft maples. The additional 60 taps were on a 27 acre parcel, that already has 5 acres of cropland. The income from syrup sales last year was reported on my income taxes. I will post results from the meeting with the assessor which should happen sometime in June.