Property tax equivalency on federal resource management lands

As revenue-sharing payments from federal lands decline, government official s and resource professionals are increasingly concerned about the equivalen cy between federal payments on resource management lands and likely propert y taxes those lands could generate. We developed tax equivalency informatio n through a nationwide random sample of 105 counties, where we simulated ag ency property taxes after working with county assessors and agency land per sonnel. We found that although tax-equivalent counties receive somewhat lar ger federal payments, the big difference is in tax bills: Tax-equivalent co unties have substantially lower tax bills than nonequivalent counties.