I raised my price on quarts and pints this year. I have a 300+ tap lease on a nice woods. Paying owner $1.00 a tap, should I raise his price?
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I raised my price on quarts and pints this year. I have a 300+ tap lease on a nice woods. Paying owner $1.00 a tap, should I raise his price?
Is the landowner happy with the 300? Maybe a kickback with some syrup? Maybe a conditional if you have a good season sweeten his pot a little bit?
I have about 1/3 of my taps on a leased sugarbush at $1/tap. I don't know how you could own property at that cost. I'm very generous with rounding up on the number of taps. The lease identified the potential taps as 700 and I'm at about 550 so I just pay them the $700 per year along with a 1/2 gallon of syrup. I also pay the full amount when the first half payment is due.
ken
I don't know much about leasing land for tapping but I do know one person who taps some acreage for free. The incentive for the landowner is lower taxes for agricultural use. $1 per tap or any amount per tap would just be a little icing on the cake.
Hi Andy,
The Vermont program I'm in is called current use so that the land beyond the residential portion is taxed as silviculture use which provides a lower tax rate than a residential parcel. You need at lease 25 acres and can do ag in the program but maple is considered as silviculture. And, you don't need to do maple sap production as long as the use falls under silviculture. All current use programs require a forestry management plan and a penalty if you take land out of the program. I think other states have very similar programs.
In your friend's situation, he might not have a formal lease if it's free. And, very importantly, he may need to vacate the land if the landowner needs to perform work in accordance with the FMP, unless it explicitly identifies sap production as a use within the stand. If the landowner needs to have maple sap production to meet his FMP recommendations then the landowner should have a lease to show a continuing silviculture activity if he is audited. A casual sap production would likely not qualify.
Ken
I'm not sure what you understood from my post but let me clarify:
I own 87 acres and I am enrolled in Vermont Current Use. I also lease about 8 acres adjacent to my property that is part of another even larger parcel and the owner is also enrolled in Current Use. I tap trees on both my property and the leased property.
Both parcels have a forestry management plan (FMP) which specifically identify maple sap production in them.
Ken
Never mind looked it up for myself.