Carbon Scam

[PoTreeBoy]

This should come as no news to any of us. Some of you are probably familiar with it.

I'm at the local hangout gas station with my BIL for breakfast. The conversation turned to trees, and one of the guys mentioned a relative getting paid for growing his trees. He gets paid yearly per 'unit' for his trees. There is (probably more than one) a company that buys 'carbon credits' in the form of green trees, marks them up by who knows what percent, and sells 'them' to companies to soothe their corporate hearts so they can improve their 'carbon footprint'.

What a farce. Nothing is being done to change anything. There's no real incentive to plant more trees. A one-year contract, when it takes 20+ years to grow a marketable tree, at their price, isn't going to entice anybody. The only thing that changes, is money from one hand, through theirs, to another.

So this is how we're going to save the planet. Hah, soothes their conscience maybe. Our new startup businesses don't produce goods or services, they transfer wealth to produce political ends.

I know, no surprise. I was just a little put off that we little guys were getting dragged in.
\rant off

 

[woodman55]

It is just another dressed up tax grab.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

yes, planting trees DOES solve the alleged 'carbon problem' and that IS the problem ! Solve ANY problem and the government,busnesses and greedySOBs can' PROFIT from the 'problem'. We'll NEVER see cancer cured...it's a trillion buck business, GW/CC, a multi trillion $ biz,world peace....never happen,free energy, nope....
Someone 'did the math' as to how many trees would be need to be planted for Canada to be 'carbon neutral', and it really wasn't that many. The problem is China is the HUGE CO2 creator and does NOTHING to stop.The other 'tree' problem we have is that we're losing millions of acres of trees due to 'bugs'. Locally ALL ash trees will be gone before I am. Pines are probably next on the list. Yet nothing done to even TRY to replace them. Just don't get me going about 'wild fires'. I presented a plan to all 3 levels of government 3 decades ago that WOULD prevent massive tree loss,save lives, etc. ZERO response. After the FOURTH attempt to be heard , I gave up.

 

[Tughill Tom]

All brought to you by , Al"I invented the Internet "Gore. BTY

 

[lynnmor]

What a farce. Nothing is being done to change anything. There's no real incentive to plant more trees. A one-year contract, when it takes 20+ years to grow a marketable tree, at their price, isn't going to entice anybody. The only thing that changes, is money from one hand, through theirs, to another.

There is one incentive, we will need trees for firewood to heat our homes when heating oil, natural gas and propane is outlawed. We won't be able to use electricity for heat, that will all go to charge electric cars. So plant some trees for your grandchildren.

 

[mikester]

I'd like to know who is doing the paying and how to sign up to get paid for trees on my conservation land I'm not allowed to touch

 

[Magicman]

Yes, it is a "feel good" situation for manufacturers, and nothing really changes except some landowners get paid for not doing what they were not going to do anyway.

It's not necessarily for planting trees, but for not harvesting trees.

The contract with NCX is on an annual basis so you agree to not harvest for the contract year. Harvesting means a timber sale, not a few firewood trees nor the normal trimming of roads & trails, etc. The landowner is not tied to any long range restrictions.

My contract on 346 acres for next year is $5948. That more than pays the taxes on my property.

If you are interested, go to the NCX website. You probably could still make the Fall bidding. I offered at the lowest bid amount, but NCX secured the contract at much more. NCX gets 7% for handling all of the bidding/contracts/etc so the higher the contract amount, the higher their %.

 

[PoTreeBoy]

I'd like to know who is doing the paying and how to sign up to get paid for trees on my conservation land I'm not allowed to touch

check out ncx

 

[PoTreeBoy]

Yes, it is a "feel good" situation for manufacturers, and nothing really changes except some landowners get paid for not doing what they were not going to do anyway.

It's not necessarily for planting trees, but for not harvesting trees.

The contract with NCX is on an annual basis so you agree to not harvest for the contract year. Harvesting means a timber sale, not a few firewood trees nor the normal trimming of roads & trails, etc. The landowner is not tied to any long range restrictions.

My contract on 346 acres for next year is $5948. That more than pays the taxes on my property.

If you are interested, go to the NCX website. You probably could still make the Fall bidding. I offered at the lowest bid amount, but NCX secured the contract at much more. NCX gets 7% for handling all of the bidding/contracts/etc so the higher the contract amount, the higher their %.

that's somewhat more than I was led to expect

 

[PoTreeBoy]

There is one incentive, we will need trees for firewood to heat our homes when heating oil, natural gas and propane is outlawed. We won't be able to use electricity for heat, that will all go to charge electric cars. So plant some trees for your grandchildren.

Yes, but when they figure out how, they'll be charging us a carbon release tax for burning wood.

 

[lynnmor]

Yes, but when they figure out how, they'll be charging us a carbon release tax for burning wood.

They are already messing with the wood burners with things like catalytic converters and emissions ratings. The wood/coal furnace that I use hasn’t changed a bit but it is now coal only. It won’t be long before they are outlawed altogether.

 

[D2Cat]

Well, we should be getting income from the grass around our properties (lawns) then.

 

[Magicman]

My take is that some landowners with forested acres are going to be paid, so why not apply and include my property?? .

 

[BruceP]

Companies have been selling/buying "tax credits' for MANY years. (not just environmental based)

The company I worked for had millions of dollars worth of machines (computer-chip manufacturing) One day, they announced that "GE Capitol" had bought all the machines.

The ONLY change we saw was all the machines now had a sticker on them saying "this equipment is property of GE Capitol" Our company still used the machines like we always did.

However, on the 'books', my company was now leasing all the machines from "GE Capitol". ( "GE Capitol" was claiming the tax-depreciation on THEIR books )

Apparently, my company had reached the limit of how much tax-depreciation they could claim.... hence, 'selling' the equipment to "GE Capitol" (and 'leasing' it back) so others could claim the depreciation was a creative way to enhance revenue.

In the end, it is all a big, complex, 'shell game' of tax shelters being shuffled around.

 

[NCL4701]

And this is why the US will never go to a simplified tax code. It’s as much, if not more, about influencing behavior than it is about generating revenue.

We currently have our little 70 acres in a forestry management plan for tax reasons. Not sure how the NCX stuff would impact the tax preferred status conferred by the forestry management plan. Might call the county agency in charge if that to see.

 

[mikester]

check out ncx

Thanks, too bad it's US only...