During the mid-nineties the property taxes still seemed affordable here,
being around $200.00 per year.
I felt like it was a fair deal, because the County has a couple of trash dump sites where one can dump landfill trash, including used motor oil and recyclable metals, during business hours 5 days a week. We generate 2 to 3 bags of landfill trash every two months which we dump there.
But then between 1999 and 2002 the tax bill increased every year even though the County tax assessor claimed that tax rates had stayed the same.
I asked him why my tax bill kept going up and he said it was due to increased assessment value and land improvements I had made, like building sheds and a cabin.
I challenged the newly assessed value and he asked me what value I would like for my land to be assessed at, and I named an amount that seemed reasonable to me at the time.
Still, the tax burden soon increased to more than I could handle as a homesteader.
Someone then told me about the "Greenbelt Law":
When I visited the tax assessor's office to find out more about the program the office staff was so helpful that I got the uneasy feeling they were being too helpful.
As in "there's always free cheese in a mouse trap".
The Assessor himself loaned me his cell phone so I could call a licensed forester on the spot and get started on the program right away in order to get the lower tax bill that year.
After talking on the phone with the forester about drawing up a forest management plan, I still could not figure out if it was a trap or not, so I signed an application for it.
Even though I had to pay for the forest management plan, I saved money on the first tax bill under the greenbelt program, and the bills have been about a third of what they would otherwise be in all the years since then.
And that's how I became a treefarmer.
My property taxes are still under $250.00 per year, which is still a fair deal because I dump 2 to 3 bags of landfill trash every other month at the County "Convenience Center" as it is euphemistically called.
Many other Land Deed holders (I hesitate to say land owners since we must pay yearly tribute to keep "our" land) have joined the program in the last few years. I recently read an article in the local paper which talked about the "lost revenue" to the State of Tennessee due to the lower property taxes under the Greenbelt assessment.
Perhaps this is why certain revenue agents have seen themselves forced to collect revenue in other ways lately, but I'm only speculating on this and I don't know if there is a connection with lost property tax revenue.
Revenue link 2
Revenue link 3
Revenue link 4
Perhaps it is time to look at a CAFR and see what's really going on with tax revenue around here.
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Originally Posted by Treefarmer
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