Tell legislators not to tax forested land

This very minute, our Iowa Legislature is trying to sneak in a new tax on forest lands. Currently forest land is not taxed, which encourages landowners to preserve forest lands and not turn them into crop land. The program has been in place since 1906, and has saved countless acres of woodlands. I do not want to make myself the bad guy here, but if forest lands are going to get taxed, I will have no choice but to begin logging my land. This means cutting down 100-year-old oak trees and selling them purely to pay off the government so I don't have to sell this land.

Our state is currently considering using some of your tax dollars to subsidize a CO2 pipeline across the middle of the state, as well as using eminent domain laws to take the land from owners that won't give up their land. What consumes CO2 naturally without harmful side effects? Trees! It makes zero sense to spend money on a green energy pipeline, and take people's property by force, then at the same time start taxing trees. Woodland owners do not get paid from the government to let their land sit idle like CRP cropland does. Most of us have zero income from these lands. The least the state can do is to not start charging us for growing trees.

Protect our trees and our natural resources and contact your state senators today and tell them to stop this anti-environmental tree-killing bill.

Steven Livingston

Guttenberg