Vermont tax division outlines how 'current use' program reduces property taxes and manages land-change penalties

Jill Remick, director of the Property Valuation and Review division at the Vermont Department of Taxes, told a legislative committee that the statewide "current use" program is a property-tax benefit intended to preserve working agricultural and forest land while changing how those parcels are taxed.

Remick said the division "do[es] basically everything working directly with municipalities related to the statewide education property tax," including processing enrollments, transfers and mapping, administering the contingent lien placed on enrolled parcels, and calculating the land use change tax when land is removed from the program.

The program, Remick said, covers roughly 19,600 enrolled parcels (about 16,000 unique owners) and accounts for about one-third of Vermont’s land cover. Enrollment is weighted toward forest land; agricultural parcels are often smaller. Remick told the committee that the department processed nearly 1,800 current-use applications in the past year, of which 277 were new enrollments and the rest were transfers or other changes. "A lot of it is about maintaining maps and making sure we have accurate mapping," she said.

Why it matters: the program lowers property-tax bills for enrolled owners but creates a contingent lien and a potential penalty if land is removed. Remick said the state calculates foregone education tax revenue at about $55 million and total foregone revenue at about $76 million; the municipal share funded from the general fund is roughly $20 million. Remick described the land use change tax…