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| ACTION NEEDED
Ask your Senators and Representatives to become cosponsors of the senate bill, S.469, or the house bill, H.R. 1576. Tell them:
How important this tax incentive is to land conservation in your community and to your work.
How the tax incentive helps the local family farmers and landowners of moderate-income level families protect their land.
If any landowners in your area have donated a conservation easement in 2006 or 2007 and been able to take advantage of the new tax incentive, tell your members of Congress about them! If you have specific examples, that is even better!
Tell them you look forward to working with them if they need any information about conservation easements or land conservation efforts in your local area.
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Federal Conservation Tax Benefits
Efforts are now under way to make the expanded federal tax benefits enacted last fall a permanent part of the tax code. Senate bill S. 469 has been introduced by Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA). Representatives Mike Thompson (D-CA) and Dave Camp (R-MI) introduced H.R. 1576, which parallels the Senate bill.
Senator Arlen Specter and six Representatives have signed on as co-sponsors of these two pieces of legislation. President Bush has also endorsed making the new tax incentive permanent in his fiscal year 2008 budget.
Below are the members of the Pennsylvania delegation that have NOT yet signed on as co-sponsors of these bills:
Sen. Robert Casey
Rep. Robert A. Brady, 1st
Rep. Michael F. Doyle, 14th
Rep. Chaka Fattah, 2nd
Rep. Tim Holden, 17th
Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, 11th
Rep. Tim Murphy, 18th
Rep. John P. Murtha, 12th
Rep. John E. Peterson, 5th
Rep. Bill Shuster, 9th
Please call your Congressman and ask him to co-sponsor this legislation. Phone numbers for your Senators’ and Representatives’ Washington DC offices can be found at www.senate.gov and www.house.gov. You should speak to the staff person that handles tax or natural resource issues, and make sure that you tell the staff of any prior relationship your land trust has had with the office. For more information and specific talking points, see right column.
A coalition for making the tax incentive permanent has submitted comments to the House Ways & Means Subcommittee on Oversight in support of the tax incentive within section 1206 of the Pension Protection Act. Download the document at http://www.lta.org/publicpolicy/coalition_comments_on_ppa.pdf. Additional information is also available at www.lta.org.
It’s important to thank those members of Congress that have already signed on as co-sponsors of these two bills. Please take the oppotunity to thank the following for their work in permanently instituting these federal tax benefits:
Sen. Arlen Specter
Rep. Jason Altmire, 4th
Rep. Christopher P. Carney, 10th
Rep. Charles Dent, 15th
Rep. Phil English, 3rd
Rep. Jim Gerlach, 6th
Rep. Todd Platts, 19th
Rep. Joe Sestak, 7th
Rep. Patrick Murphy, 8th
Rep. Allyson Schwartz, 13th
Visit http://www.lta.org/publicpolicy/hr4_factsheet.htm to view a Land Trust Alliance Fact Sheet
detailing the expanded tax benefits.
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