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CAPITAL IDEAS -- LIVE!
March 2005 News Conference for Forest Owners
Sponsored by Alabama Forest Owners' Association, Inc. Conference was recorded
March 16, 2005.
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Hayes D. Brown
starting time: (00:00) |
Moderator
Hayes D. Brown, attorney and forest owner, will moderate this
news conference. Hayes' email address is
hbrown@hayesbrown.com.
Click Here to View & Hear Prior News Conferences.
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Dr. Mike Clutter
(00:29) |
Forest Industry Land Sales Suggest Future Declines in
Timber Supply AND Demand
Mike
Clutter
is a professor of Business and Finance at the University of Georgia's
Warnell School of
Forest Resources in Athens, Georgia. Timberland ownership is
changing. Large forest products companies are selling lands at a record pace
and the new owners are diversifying in a direction away from timber
production, such as real estate development and recreation. If this trend
continues, what will be the long-term effect on timber supply and the
viability of forest products businesses such as saw mills and paper mills?
We currently are fortunate to have scores of buyers for our timber in every
region of the state, but that could change, just as it has in the Western
U.S. where the federal government has quit selling timber and forced the
closing of many mills. We have heard that lack of bidders on Western timber
sales is a frequent occurrence on both government and private land.
Phone: (706) 542-5448
Email:
mclutter@smokey.forestry.uga.edu
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Tance E. Roberts
(04:27) |
Estate Planning Tips
Tance Roberts is an
attorney with
Clark & Roberts
located in St. Augustine, Florida. She has done many presentations helping
landowners become more aware of their options
and obligations on issues relating to estate planning. After spending
many years caring for our land, we don't want our heirs to be forced to
sell
it in order to pay off probate and estate taxes. To help us prevent this
ironic situation, Ms. Roberts offers some tips that can help us stay ahead
of the Grim Reaper and Uncle Sam.
Tance's Tips
- Make sure your estate plan takes care of
YOUR specific needs & that it is kept up to date. Estate plans are not
stagnant.
- Try establishing an
irrevocable trust or consider
lifetime gifting
- Try advance planning methods which utilize
minority interest discounts & lack of marketability discounts by
having land owned by multiple family owners methods
- Plan for
generation-skipping transfers
- Use your timberland's
special use valuation
- Create
conservation easements
- Plan now how you’re going to pay your
taxes when they’re due, such as life insurance and other types of proper
planning
- Form a team of professionals: tax
attorney, CPA, financial planner
Phone: (904) 826-1772
Email:
clarkandroberts@bellsouth.net
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Dr. Vivian Friedman
(09:57) |
Motivating the Next Generation
Vivian
Friedman is an associate professor in the
Department of
Child-Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Alabama at
Birmingham. In addition, she writes a twice-weekly parenting column for
The Birmingham News, and is the author of Raising Children: Selected
Columns From The Birmingham News. At
AFOA's Annual Meeting Friedman will tell us about problems some
families face when preparing their children to be proactive in family
matters. She will also suggest some strategies that may help "push" the next
generation into becoming more interested in maintaining a legacy. Here, she
summarizes this presentation for Capital Ideas -- Live! listeners.
WEBLINKS
Phone: (205) 934-4912
Email: viviank@charter.net
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W. Holt Speir, III
(14:29) |
Tax-Free Property Exchange
Holt Speir
is an attorney with
Capell &
Howard P.C. in Montgomery. Typically, when we sell land and make a
profit, we are going to be taxed, even when we turn right around and buy
some other property with the sale income. Section 1031 of the IRS
Code has, for many years, allowed us to swap commercial property, such as a
vacant lot, a rental house, or forestland and, if the properties were of
equal value, accrue no income tax. The IRS has established procedures for
accomplishing the tax-free exchange and Mr. Speir urges us to follow those
procedures to the letter.
Requirements to defer gain:
- The relinquished property (the property
you’re selling) & the replacement property (the property you’re buying
with the proceeds from the sale of the relinquished property) must both
be held for productive use in a trade or business or for
investment.
- The relinquished property & the
replacement property must be
like-kind: they must be real property.
- Exchange requirement – you cannot hold the
funds that are realized from the sale of the relinquished property. You
must use a qualified intermediary.
- Time restrictions:
- You have 45 days from the date of the sale
of your relinquished property to let the intermediary know the identity
of the replacement property.
- You have to close on the purchase of the
replacement property within 180 days after the date of the sale
of the relinquished property.
Phone: (334) 241-8029
Email: whs@chlaw.com
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Dr. Ed Wilson
(20:08) |
Standing Timber Casualty Insurance: A Primer
Ed
Wilson is an agent with the
Davis-Garvin Agency,
Inc. based in Columbia, South Carolina.
Last
October on Capital Ideas -- Live!, Ed described his
standing timber insurance program for
privately-owned, managed timberland and many of you have expressed an
interest in buying coverage for some or all of your timber. While this
insurance could provide important financial security for you, it is
important that you understand how it works. Wilson reviews important
language in this type of insurance, such as "insurance to value,"
"co-insurance clause," and "deductible percentage," and has provided us with
excellent examples.
Things You Should Know About Casualty Loss
Insurance:
-
Insurance-to-Value Provisions
- The
Co-Insurance Clause - is it present and what it means if it's
not
- Examples:
Insured to Full Value vs. Not Insured to Full Value and Effect of
Deductible Percentage
Phone: 1-800-845-3163x151
Email: ewilson@davisgarvin.com
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Dr. Ben Hanna
(23:20) |
Competing In the 21st Century
Ben Hanna is senior manager of
Business and
Industrial for
eBay, with his office located in San Jose, California. The
Agriculture & Forestry category is systematically broken down
into
easy-to-follow subcategories, which provides an easy way to find
literally everything we need to help us manage our forestland - and,
the service is
completely free! Hanna explains further why it's worth it to us to
learn how to use the Agriculture & Forestry service and explains a little
bit about how eBay works in general.
Phone: (408) 376-7152
Email: bhanna@ebay.com
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Dr. V. Clark Baldwin
(26:39) |
Oak Regeneration: Another Perspective
Clark Baldwin is the
National Program Leader for
Silviculture Research for the
USDA Forest Service
in Washington, DC. Most of us have some land that is better suited to
hardwoods than pines and most of us have no idea how to improve the quality
of the trees we have nor the quality of the species growing there. Clark has
been studying the artificial regeneration of oaks and fills us in on the
outcome of a workshop he was involved with that focused on artificial
regeneration of oak stands in Eastern forests, including some oak planting
recommendations from the experts.
Phone: (703) 605-5178
Email: vbaldwin@fs.fed.us
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Dr. David E. Bolin
(30:49) |
Oil & Gas in Alabama: Past and Present
Dave Bolin
is an Assistant Oil and Gas Supervisor for the
State Oil and Gas
Board of Alabama and currently serves as the Head of the Technical
Operations and Ground Water Protection Division. He discusses oil and gas
activity trends over the years, and offers a historical perspective on major
watershed events as well as an update on oil and gas hot spots in the
State.
Hotspots
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Conecuh County - significant expansion
of an oil field in the Little Cedar Creek area
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Tuscaloosa, Jefferson, Shelby, and Walker
Counties – higher prices for crude oil & natural gas translated into
a significant increase in drilling activity
Historical Facts on Alabama's Oil & Gas
Industry
- Lawrence County, 1865: the first
oil wells in the southeastern U.S. were drilled
- Huntsville, early 1900s: the first
commercially marketed natural gas production in the southeast occurs.
- Choctaw County, 1944: commercial
quantities of oil are discovered near Gilbertown. This leads to
the creation of the State Oil and Gas Board in 1945.
- In the 1980s, Alabama became a
world leader in the development of coal bed methane gas as an energy
resource
- During the past 24 years, over 76% of
all drilling permits have been issued, 78% of all fields have
been established, and the
number of producing wells has increased from 1,000 to
5,400
- 1992: Alabama became one of the top
ten gas producers in the country and has been ranked 9th in the nation
since 1994
Phone: (205) 247-3579
Email: dbolin@ogb.state.al.us
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