Poor Appraisal Reports Sink Conservation Easements at Tax Court

Four partnerships can’t claim a total of more than $62 million in conservation easement tax deductions where their efforts to appraise the land involved unattributed material from Wikipedia and predetermined valuations, the US Tax Court ruled Monday.

Judge Joseph W. Nega said the partnerships’ easements, which cover 432 acres of rural land east of the Atlanta metropolitan area, didn’t obtain a qualified appraisal. The court “does not assign any credibility to the reports produced” by Thomas Spears, the partnership’s appraisal expert who testified as to one of the easements at trial, the judge wrote.

In a conservation easement, a land ...