Do high property taxes influence family forest land Tenure decisions?

Studies have repeatedly documented high property taxes as being a major determinant of a landowner’s decision to divest of its forest land. To empirically investigate the relationship between property tax burden and forest land sale activity, property tax data and over 5300 Minnesota forest land sale records from 2000 to 2008 were assembled. Analyses were carried out to identify statistically significant relationships between several measures of private forest land sale activity and forest land property tax burden. The analyses failed to find a statistically positive relationship between the two. Statistically significant negative associations were found between some measures of forest property tax burden and forest land sale frequency, indicating forest land sales activity actually decreased with increasing property tax burden. While high property taxes, no doubt, influence forest land sale decisions, the findings from this study suggest its influence may not be as pervasive as once thought.