Committee hears bill to adjust estate-tax exemption for small forest land owners

Salem — The House Committee on Revenue opened a public hearing Wednesday on Senate Bill 485A, which would revise the natural resource estate tax exemption to clarify how small family forest owners document and qualify their land for the exemption.

The bill, which sponsors described as a technical fix to 2023 changes, would limit the exemption to forest land parcels between 10 and 5,000 acres that were held and managed by the decedent or a family member for at least five years before the decedent’s death and held and managed by a family member for five years after the date of death. It would require documentation ‘‘of management activities that are appropriate or customary for qualified forest land parcels’’ and apply to estates of decedents who die on or after Jan. 1, 2026.

Supporters said the…