June 22, 2023 4:00 a.m.

On Wednesday, the Oregon Senate passed Senate Bill 498 A.

A release from the Oregon Senate Republicans said the legislation makes the state’s estate tax more workable for multigenerational farms, fishing businesses, and family forestlands. It allows up to $15 million of farm, fishing and forest property to be excluded from the value of estates that pay the estate tax.

Chief sponsor Senator Bill Hansell, a Republican from Athena, said, “This is a major issue for Oregon’s national resource families who fuel our economy. Corporate farming organizations are ready to gobble up farmland, including multigenerational farms facing foreclosure due to an unpayable estate tax bill”. Hansell said, “SB 498 ensures that our natural resource families get the relief they both need and deserve”.

The release said there are 37,000 farms in Oregon averaging 423 acres in size. 96.7 percent are family owned.

Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp, of Bend, said, “I applaud Senator Hansell’s work to reduce the burden of Oregon’s worst-in-the-nation estate tax on our farming, fishing and forestry families”. Knopp said, “Oregon’s estate tax should not jeopardize generational operations nor prevent the ability to transfer family farms from generation to generation”.

The release said the legislation creates an exclusion from the estate tax for any interest in natural resource property that is held by a decedent for at least one year prior to death and is transferred, at the time of death, to one or more family members of the decedent. It allows estates to claim an exemption for up to $15 million of natural resource property value and if claiming the exemption, they may not claim the existing Natural Resource Credit. It applies to the estates of decedents dying on or after July 1, 2023.