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By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON
Raiipahannock News Staff Writer
“It’s not that significant,” concluded E. P. Luke, of the financial impact use value taxation has had on the county’s tax base.
Luke, former chairman of the Rappahannock board and a vocal opponent of land use when the preferential assessment program was adopted two years ago, reported to the supervisors on the results of a study he had conducted in the past month on land use. The survey presented at Monday’s board meeting covered properties in Rappahannock’s four existing Agricultural and Forestal Districts which qualify for assessment at use value as opposed to fair market value.
At fair market value, taxes on land in approved districts would have amounted to $22,011 this year. At use value, tax bills totalted $6,994, a 68 percent reduction, Luke noted. “That’s about a penny on the tax rate.”
In Rappahannock’s ag districts, 38 percent of the land falls in the category of forest land, 60 percent is classified as pasture land and two percent as orchards, Luke said.
Land use taxation is currently available to qualifying properties in an ag district (which must be comprised of a minimum of 500 acres) and through the county’s general use value taxation program (which sets minimum parcel size of ten acres for agricultural, horticultural and open space land and 25 acres for forest land).
96.1%