Appeals Court Doubts Land Use Analysis Required for Easements

A panel of Eleventh Circuit judges expressed skepticism Wednesday that the US Tax Court must provide an extensive analysis of conservation easement tax deduction claims before rejecting them.

During oral arguments , Judge Robert J. Luck and Judge Federico A. Moreno—sitting by designation from the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida—suggested the Tax Court wasn’t wrong to find that a discounted cash flow analysis looking at the profitability of a hypothetical aggregate mine wasn’t necessary.

The lower court said Savannah Shoals LLC’s experts “severely overestimated demand” for the land at issue, which the company said could ...