Does anybody have this tax exemption on their land? We recently acquired land in Dimmit County that is currently under the ag exemption, but we are going to try for the wildlife exemption. You need to qualify for three out of the following:
(A) habitat control;
(B) erosion control;
(C) predator control;
(D) providing supplemental supplies of water;
(E) providing supplemental supplies of food;
(F) providing shelters; and
(G) making census counts to determine population
Right now we already have supplemental food and water. Predator control can only be claimed in extreme cases. I am wondering if they will let me use trail cameras to conduct a population census. Just curious if anybody has any experience with this or knows easy ways to qualify for the tax exemption.
Here's a link for you that should have some answers. You should also contact the Dimmit Appraisal District's Ag Appraiser and ask for any County specific rules.
Having the Ag on there now is a huge plus, moving to the Wildlife should be fairly simple. You can also ask the district for permission to "rest" the land for a year while in conversion. Hope this helps.
Do you have ag, or open space exemption? If you have Ag and you take it out of ag, someone (you unless specifically provided otherwise in the purchase contract) is going to have to pay the roll back taxes. They are huge if your coming out of an actual Ag exemption.
I have a wildlife exemption on a piece that we took out of open space. We use it for ducks - seasonally flood, draw down, and maintain for ducks. Its not hard to keep and TXPW will help you set something up for you, no matter what your using.
Contact them, and ask for the free landowner assistance. THey will help you make a wildlife plan, which you have to file anyway, and they can give you good insight.
I hope your exemption was open space...b/c actually coming out of ag, can cost 10s of thousands. They roll back the last 3 of 5 years.
The OP mentioned that the property was currently under Ag, but yes you are correct with the rollback however the rollbacks generally occur when there is a change in use to the land, ie. development...
A lot of times in the transition of the deed it will trigger the appraisal district to have the new owner reapply for their Ag. Either way, my first step would be to talk to the appraisal district's Ag appraiser and go from there. TPWD is a great source but each appraisal district has their own parameters from which to work.
Building bluebird boxes satisfies one of the 3 things. We did it several yrs ago, and I'll be darned if we don't have bluebirds nesting in 'em. TP&W has plans for the boxes on their site. Pretty cool to be sitting in a blind and looking at the birds while waiting on other critters to show!
Jerry
Bluegill, I recently had my ranch approved for a wildlife exemption in Atascosa county. I suggest that the first step you take is consulting a TPWD biologist to help you construct a management plan. Don't begin to spend money on implementing any facet of the plan until approved. It took the appraisal dist. seven months to approve me. A change in ownership requires that you re-apply for ag-exemption with no guarantees that it will be granted. If a property was divided from a larger property it will be scrutinized more and may have different qualifications.
My understanding is that the legislature changed the Ag exemption in 2005 for all counties. I know every appraisal district has their own rules, but I THINK - key word Think - that a sale triggers a review of the ag exemption now in all counties - especially if its broken from a larger tract.
If you had an ag exemption - the only way to continue it again, I think, is that agriculture be your "primary" source of income. The legislature has defined primary now to exclude stocks, bonds, 401k, etc but no outside income can exceed 80% of gross income and maintain an ag exemption. They want ag exemption to go to true Farmers/Ranchers and everyone else get open space or wildlife.
The Ag exemption is significant - even over open space, or wildlife...its like 5% of the value of the normal taxes.
I could be wrong, but this is what we were told by the attorney that helped us close on our property 3 years ago.
You do not have to have a major part of your income going to AG. That is a different type of ag exemption from what I remember. Here in Brazos county you have to have I believe 8 units of livestock on your place equivalent to 1000lbs per unit. Also in order to Wildlife exempt in this county you have to have at least 16 acres. This county at the time does not have a minimum acreage limit for Ag exemption. Though Brazos county is in the process of reviewing it when I purchased our my land.
I have property in edwards co, the property in question must be in ag ex for the last 5 yrs in order to apply for wildlife management. you need to get the form from tpwd dept or contact local wildlife bio., then talk to your country tax assessor .
We purchased property in Karnes County in 2007 and converted it from "open space" exemption to wildlife. As several have said, contacting your local tpwd biologist is the first place to start. Ours was very helpful in providing a wildlife management plan to submit to the tax office, as well as suggestions to improve the quality of our property to support wildlife. He also told us that our tax office was very friendly towards the wildlife exemption. The local tax office provided a form required by Karnes County for the conversion. Things that the prior land owner was doing, and we were continuing, allowed us to easily meet the state criteria. If you meet the requirements, state law requires the local tax office to accept the wildlife exemption, but they can still slow the process if they choose to.
We have to do population counts for our MLD tags. Our biologist told us that you can use trail cams for your counts (we don't). You need to talk to your biologist for the exact requirements. He also warned us that the state audited all wildlife exemptions in an adjoining county during the prior year. He said to save all receipts relating to your exemption, and take some pictures of things that help you qualify.
Hope this helps.
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