Property Tax on Sheep and Goats of Breeding Age
Like 0 Dislike 0 Published on 29 Oct 2012
Welcome to Advantax.
I'm Owen Jensen with your PropTax Minute.
Just when you think you've heard of every property tax possible., this one is one of the more interesting ones, to say the least.
In West Virginia, when filing a commercial business property return, there's a section for "number of sheep and goats of breeding age."
The instructions ask the preparer to fill in the number of each and then remit $1 for each head with the completed form.
According to a 2001 study, the breeding ewe and lamb population in West Virginia was about 28,000. As a result, the maximum collectable property tax would be $28,000, which some might argue hardly pays for an auditor to drive around the state to visit all the sheep farmers.
And it appears that tax on sheep is not a new thing. In 1549, England imposed a tax on sheep with different rates for different breeds. It was the shortest-lived tax in English history.
In 2003, New Zealand took a different approach... they proposed a tax, not on the sheep themselves, but on the flatulence emitted by sheep, cattle and deer. You can imagine how difficult it would be to manage that tax!
Just some property tax implications to keep in mind, next time you consider raising sheep and goats.
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Thanks for watching.