Milam County Beekeeping Ag Exemption

Below six acres, a residence makes the whole tract residential principal use to Milam County CAD, and no agricultural value goes on it. Bees don't change that. Contiguous parcels under one ownership count as one property, so two adjoining four-acre parcels clear that line together. Texas Tax Code 23.51(2) sets the beekeeping band at not less than five and not more than twenty acres. Bees carry twenty acres at most, so a bigger place needs another agricultural use on the rest. The manual prints standards for those too. A residence on the tract takes a homesite out of your total first. That's residential acreage, the sort a homestead exemption attaches to. Texas Tax Code 11.13 puts a separate twenty-acre ceiling on the homesite itself, and only acreage used for the residence counts toward it. A residence puts that carve-out at one acre by default, and the district calls the figure adjustable. Six acres leaves five in agricultural use only if the district carves one.

Agriculture has to be the current and principal use of your tract. It can carry more than one use, and where it does the chief appraiser determines which one is primary. The land stops qualifying when a non-agricultural use takes over that primary spot. Moving from one agricultural use to another doesn't end the valuation, so long as agriculture stays the most important use of the place. That change still has to reach the district in writing by April 30. Agricultural use has to cover at least 51 percent of the property for the whole property to take agricultural value. Below that, only the acres actually in production may receive it.

Under Texas Tax Code 23.51(1) and the Time Period Test in Milam County CAD's ag manual, land won't qualify unless agriculture has been its principal use for at least five years out of the last seven. The previous owner's application is confidential under Section 23.45 of the Texas Property Tax Code, so that history may have to come from a neighbor or whoever worked the place. The test can pass automatically if the district has already noted agricultural use on the tract in prior years, or if the prior owner already qualified for agricultural value. Otherwise you must be engaged in an appropriate agricultural activity for five years to build that history. The district encourages an application in each of those five, and your property becomes eligible on the sixth-year filing if the preceding five hold up.

The manual works off January 1 and requires agricultural use on the land that day. Hives also have to stay put at least seven months a year, and pulling them off the property puts that tax year at risk. On a tract showing no agricultural use on January 1, the manual says the chief appraiser should grant special valuation only if you show intent of agricultural use and that agriculture will be the primary use for at least seven months of the year. Milam County CAD accepts a signed contract as that showing of intent, or a purchase order with documented delivery dates.

Our crew places standard 10-frame hives. Colonies die, and an October count can be short by February. On the places we manage, we rebuild it. Keeping your own bees, you take the count off the district's printed steps and your own acreage. Texas Tax Code 23.51(2) admits bees kept for pollination, or for products carrying a commercial value, and only the second of those carries a commercial test.

You file on state form 50-129, and the deadline is April 30. The chief appraiser may extend that by up to 60 days without penalty, but you have to show good cause and get the request in writing before it passes. Miss it with no extension and the district still takes a late application, until the appraisal review board has approved that year's roll.

A late application filed without an extension carries a 10 percent penalty on the gap between the tax at market value and the tax at agricultural productivity value, though a buyer who meets the four conditions in Texas Tax Code 23.541(a-2) doesn't pay the penalty. A request for more information starts a 30-day clock, and with no response by the 31st day the application counts as denied. A denial comes in writing with the district's reasons, and you get 30 days to take it to the appraisal review board.

Land that sits inside an incorporated city or town isn't eligible under Texas Tax Code 23.56 unless the city doesn't provide it the general services other parts of the city get, or agriculture has been the principal use continuously for the five preceding years. You can also waive 1-d-1 valuation as to a taxing unit under Section 23.20 of the Texas Property Tax Code. That waiver runs a fixed 25 years, it stays with the land through a sale, and you can't lift it on your own once it's filed.

Once the application is approved the valuation carries forward, and a new one is needed only if ownership changes, the use changes, or the chief appraiser asks for one. District staff run routine site inspections of every property already on the agricultural valuation. The manual says any property or portion of one found out of compliance could draw an action ranging from a request for a new application up to removal of the agricultural value, and as far as a rollback. Which one depends on the circumstances. If your land's eligibility ends or its use type changes, notify the district in writing by April 30. Skip that and the penalty runs 10 percent of the gap between the taxes imposed in each year the valuation was erroneously allowed and the taxes that would otherwise have been imposed, under Tax Code Section 23.54(h).

State law defines the rollback. Under Texas Tax Code 23.55, a change of use puts an additional tax on the three tax years before it, each one the gap between the tax paid on agricultural value and the tax market value would have carried. That amount carries no interest. The ag manual says ending agricultural operations can trigger it, and so can turning the property to a non-agricultural use or platting it into a subdivision. If only part of your land changes use, the rollback lands on that part alone. The chief appraiser decides whether the use changed and gives written notice, and there are 30 days to protest before the bill goes out.

Under 1-d-1 the district qualifies the land itself, regardless of who tends to the bees on it. On a Milam County place we work under a managed beekeeping agreement. Our colonies stay on your land all twelve months, and they don't leave it for pollination contracts. At a district inspection you stay the district's point of contact, and we're on the property and can say what's out there. Inspections go into the Outlaw Hideout, and you can sign in and pull a report to hand the district. State law leaves apiary registration voluntary. We register anyway. Your yard goes on that registration as one of the locations we work, and we give you documentation showing your land is on it. The honey your land makes is yours. If you'd rather not sell it yourself, we'll put an offer in on the crop. If you want to sell it, our packaging option covers the bottling and labeling, which takes that part of the job off your hands.

Milam County straddles the blackland and the post oak belt along the Little River, and the land around Cameron and Rockdale is still in cotton, hay and cattle. Mesquite runs through the pastures, horsemint and prairie verbena carry into early summer, the cotton gives nectar and pollen when it blooms, and goldenrod blooms into the fall. We walk the place, write down what's blooming and when, and recommend from that. The rest of the bloom is in the Central Texas forage guide.