| Environmentalist pioneers tax trade AIKEN - Carlton Owen is a broker, but he doesn't trade stocks or bonds. The Greenville resident is actually a pioneer of sorts. He's thought to be the only full-time broker of conservation tax credits in South Carolina, the only state other than Virginia and Colorado that allows residents to sell or give away tax credits they receive for placing conservation easements on their property. "My whole purpose in life is to bring business and the environment together," said Mr. Owen, who has worked as an environmentalist for about 30 years. "This does just that." Mr. Owen recently set up the South Carolina Conservation Credit Exchange LLC in August. He has yet to complete his first transaction, though he says he has a deal waiting in the wings. His intent has never been to make money, however. His only goal, he says, is to further land conservation, which was the intent of the South Carolina Conservation Incentives Act of 2001. The act allows South Carolina residents to claim 25 percent of the federal income tax reduction they collect for placing an easement on their land. The federal reduction is calculated by subtracting the value of land under an easement from its highest possible developed value. For example, if a piece of land is worth $100,000 under a conservation easement and $200,000 if developed, the owner could subtract the difference from his federal income taxes over a six-year period. In South Carolina, a landowner can subtract 25 percent of that total, as much as $52,500 a year, from state income taxes, or sell the credits to someone else. Mr. Owen's Credit Exchange is selling the tax credits for 75 cents on the dollar. In Colorado, where land conservation is booming, buyers are typically wealthy and find the credits a convenient way to lower their taxable income, said Mike Strugar, who opened the first brokerage there in 1999. There are now seven or eight brokerages in the state, and Mr. Strugar estimates they will conduct about $50 million in transactions this year. "People are saving a lot of money on their taxes," he said. "It's probably tripled the number of conservation easements that people have donated, which was the intent." South Carolina has a long way to go to match Colorado figures. The state Department of Revenue reported that eight independent transfers had been conducted this year, compared with about 300 transactions Mr. Strugar estimated would take place in Colorado.
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