I’m a flat tax guy like Steve Forbes, Chairman & Editor-In-Chief, Forbes Media and author of "Flat Tax Revolution," so in an ideal world, we wouldn’t stuff the IRS tax code with special tax breaks and instead would have one simple, low rate of 18% for everyone.But if Congress passes tax laws steering people and businesses into certain activities, it can’t just snatch those incentives away indiscriminately.This is called a "bait-and-switch" trap, and here’s a perfect example of such a misdeed.More than 60 years ago, the IRS created a program called a conservation easement through a revenue ruling.
Its goal was to protect nature, stop development, and save working lands.Landowners received a tax incentive for voluntarily setting aside a portion of their land from development.
The law has been in effect since 1976 — nearly 50 years.The tax break was made permanent in 1980 and has been part of the tax code ever since.To further encourage this land preservation policy, individuals, business partnerships, and corporations were permitted to donate to these land easements in exchange for a tax write-off.
The result? Tens of millions of acres have been conserved.IRS RAISES BUSINESS MILEAGE DEDUCTION RATE AMID FUEL PRICE SURGEThen, in late 2016, IRS officials who disapproved of these syndicated conservation-easement transactions unilaterally changed the rules of the game.Notice 2017-10 did not formally abolish the conservation-easement deduction, but it branded a broad category of transactions as "listed transactions," imposed burdensome disclosure requirements, and opened the door to an aggressive campaign challenging taxpayers who used them.If there are bad actors, of course, they should be punished, but the vast majority of these tax deals were created legally.They retroactively labeled partnerships participating in the program "presumptively abusive." This aggressive IRS enforcement campaign has swept more than 1,100 syndicated conservation-easement di...