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According to Old Mac T. Wall’s website, the Airport Road property is his Harvard Square project, and according to Dane County’s website, the Harvard Square project owned by Old Mac T. Wall had a 2008 assessed value of $4,496,100 with property taxes amounting to $77,256. Since Old Mac T. Wall became a farmer and had his land reclassified to agricultural, the assessed value of the property dropped to an astoundingly low $3,300, which means Old Mac T. Wall’s 2009 taxes on the property dropped to a very reasonable $56.70. So if we add Old Mac T. Wall’s pumpkin patch to his Harvard Square farm, he’s loopholing Middleton’s taxpayers out of over $111,000!

As for the farm land use assessment, the law is beneficial to farmers because even when the land is owned by non-farmers, the owners still rent the land to farmers for lower rent because of the farm land assessment law. Farm land rent would be higher if not for the farm land use assessment law. (I know because when the law was passed, the farmers we rent to all demanded lower rent.) For example, we have land we rent to farmers for basically close to nothing because of that law - the farmers know of the law, they know that land owners receive a lower assessment if the land is put to productive use farming, and therefore, they negotiate a lower rent (sometimes near zero) because of that law.

Likewise, because of the farm land use assessment law, developers aren't pressured into developing land immediately in order to avoid the extraordinary carrying costs associated with the property taxes on land that is not yet producing revenue from development. This means that the land is held in a farm land state for a longer period of time compared to if developers were forced to develop more quickly because of the high carrying costs.

Therefore, the law doing exactly as the legislature intended. It provides for lower farm land rent to farmers, and it encourages developers to keep the land in a farmed state for as long as possible.

A typical homeowner here can expect to pay another $30 or $40 in town property taxes next year, even though the town expects to spend little more than last year.

The higher tax bills result mainly from reduced revenues from other sources and an uncharacteristic dip in the town's taxable property value.

The town's total assessed value fell nearly $87 million, to $2.2 billion, last year as idle properties primed for commercial development were returned to agricultural use.

"If a developer can reap some income by growing crops on those properties, that's what they'll do," Town Administrator Jim March said. [Emphasis is mine.]

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