Passing the Buck: Taxes on Rented Farmland

AAEA Member research released in AEPP

According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA NASS) states that there are 240,000 farms and ranches are contacted for their acres operated and acres rented for cash. So how much of property taxes on farmland is passed on to farmers which rent land instead of owning it?

In a new article published in the Applied Economic Perspective and Policy, researchers examine the land owners that pay the property tax, and how they may be using a rate at which they charge rent as a mechanism for recuperating some of the associated property tax.

Authors, Ani Katchova, and Associate Professor and Farm Income Enhancement Chair at The Ohio State University and Robert Dinterman from The Ohio State University, researched the “Property Tax Incidence on Cropland Cash Rent”

Katchova says, “Landowners cannot fully pass on the increased property tax onto renters which indicates some degree of bargaining power of renters, although this has already been discovered in the government subsidy literature but we confirm the same result occurs for taxation purposes.”

If you are interested in setting up an interview, please contact Allison Scheetz in the AAEA Business Office.

ABOUT AAEA: Established in 1910, the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) is the leading professional association for agricultural and applied economists, with 2,500 members in more than 60 countries. Members of the AAEA work in academic or government institutions as well as in industry and not-for-profit organizations, and engage in a variety of research, teaching, and outreach activities in the areas of agriculture, the environment, food, health, and international development. The AAEA publishes two journals, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy, as well as the online magazine Choices. To learn more, visit www.aaea.org.

Contact: Allison Scheetz
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(414) 918-3190
Email: ascheetz@aaea.org