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Many resource planners, environmentalists, and landowners are looking toward community planning and various
financial and tax incentives for private landowners as a means to preserve habitat. With 94 percent of all land in Texas held privately, an incentives approach seems reasonable. The
following are some activities that are being used by other states or being proposed by conservation groups:*
- Local and state property taxes paid on lands providing habitat for endangered, threatened, and candidate species and for
lands representing significant biodiversity would be offset by an annual federal income-tax credit. Participating landowners would develop a Habitat Management Plan in cooperation with
the Fish and Wildlife Service.
- Expenses assumed for improving or creating new habitat for endangered, threatened, and candidate species would be eligible
for federal tax credit.
- Lands managed to support endangered species would be deductible from taxable income.
- The conversion of wildlife habitat to some other use would be subject to a federal tax penalty.
- The use of federal subsidies and tax benefits for activities causing the loss or degradation of endangered species habitat
would be prohibited.
In 1991, the Texas legislature enacted a bill that added wildlife management to the list of agricultural uses
that qualified otherwise taxable open land for special appraisal valuation for property tax purposes. To qualify for this wildlife management use, land must be qualified for agricultural
appraisal or open-space agricultural appraisal at the time the owner changes its use to wildlife management. Land qualified for timber appraisal is not eligible to qualify for wildlife
management use.*
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