I would appreciate if someone could give a brief summary of what is required to gain an Agricultural Exemption. I want to minimize the taxes I'll be paying on the 4 acres we own in Copper Canyon.

Along the same lines....I have recently heard that there is also a Wildlife Exemption that can be acquired. Does anyone know the details about this? As I understand, this can be used in the case where land previously granted an Ag exemption is not actively being used for ag purposes. Say farmer stops planting a portion of his or her land. To avoid losing the ag exempt on that portion, they can restore the land to native condition to encourage endangered plant or animal species to inhabit that land. If you are familiar with this am I on track? How does one qualify for this? Can one go directly to the Wildlife exemption without ever having an agricultural exemption?

Hoping to save a few thousand in taxes.....

Try this for information:
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/conserve/pr ... ural_land/
Tony M

This is probably not helpful, but we bought 10 ac in Fannin Co.designated Ag exempt. Wanting more than 10 ac, we bought the 10 ac adjacent. It was NOT Ag exempt. (only difference we could see was in the taxes!) So, at tax time, we went to the court house & asked if the two pieces could be taxed together as 'AG' & all they asked was: "what is growing there?" We said: "hay". They said: "hey, ok." So I'm wondering if each county is different in how they check on these things...
Patty
ps-there IS hay growing there.

Thanks all.

Tony, after following your link and doing some more searches it seems that one has to have the Agricultural Exemption before the Wildlife one. Seems a bit silly that if Wildlife Preservation now qualifies as classification under Ag exemption, one wouldn't need to qualify for Ag exemption under a different classification first.

BTW, do you have an exemption Tony?

That's one issue I'm concerned about. I mentioned the 9 acres next to us in another thread -- it hasn't been touched in 10 years or so, and mesquite is giving way to real diversity. But it has no current ag use. Does that mean that, to get the Wildlife Exemption, I'd have to clear-cut it and grow hay until the Ag Exemption kicks in?

It sounds like a "poison pill" in the law, designed to disadvantage anyone who had created a natural area before the law passed. Or perhaps it was just a way to encourage ag-to-wildlife conversions, but someone just didn't think far enough ahead. I'm not feeling terribly hopeful today, so I'll brood over the former.