npaden
Well-known member
They file 990 informational tax returns and post them on their website that pretty much has everything you are asking for on them.
American Prairie - 88,000 acres of access
- Thread starter Big Fin
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They file 990 informational tax returns and post them on their website that pretty much has everything you are asking for on them.
cgasner1
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Forkyfinder
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I mean - do scum bag orgs like upom? How about citizens for balanced use? How about 501c3s that operate as lobbyist orgs funded by legislators?
If youre out to check intentions of organizations in Montana - long list id look into first.
As far as "tax advantages" - are you referring to the agriculture classification for property tax? The agriculture is a cash hiding side quest on the N bar too - its a hobby/recreation ranch in the first place. Should their tax status change as well?
Absolutely.
I already read them way before you posted. Do you think tbat's full disclosure? Answer my other questions. Why did the page on board nembers get taken down?? Who are the top 20 or 50 or 100 contributors?? For any "non-profit" for that matter. Maybe Big Fin knows that. Id like full disclosure of any gifts if any that hevor his people have received. Full market value. In all fairness. Just complete transparency.
Everybody always throws out the term property rights. Define them. Also define private public partnerships. Are these back room " deals" with beurocrats???
Why would where they get there money matter to anyone? I assume they have donors that are on the opposite side of the political spectrum from me....that is great. Use there dollars for something I find value in! Full disclosure, I got an AP hat at the PFest in 2023 or 2024 as a gift. Does that make a difference?
The page on their BOD is up! Maybe they had to update it or had a website glitch. Who knows! I don't think it is an evil conspiracy theory.
The page on their BOD is up! Maybe they had to update it or had a website glitch. Who knows! I don't think it is an evil conspiracy theory.
Forkyfinder
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Absolutely. Why as a conservative, wouldnt you like the idea of a liberal paying for you to have hunting access and increase/grow wildlife habitat? Seems pretty swell to a guy who votes mostly red.
bayoublaster7527
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Truth. Be happy you have APR up in Montana and not its decidedly anti-hunting, “rewilding” cousin to the south (Colorado), the Southern Plains Land Trust. SPLT doesn’t allow any public access, especially not for consumptive users. Coincidentally, SPLC is also the training ground for the anti-hunting, anti-agriculture appointees who now control the Colorado wildlife commission and land board.
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Would it matter to you if the Chinese communist party was funding it? Probably not, Im guessing. Does it matter when non-profits get favored tax status and the money is used fod untoward purposes possibly? Full transparency helps stymie the back room deals. But maybe youre good with that approach gor any nonprofit organization as long as it suits what they convince you theyre doing. I sir, am not.
Hunting Wife
Well-known member
I’m not really sure what specifically about APR you are worried about? Seems like a lot of abstract talking points that have no basis on actual happenings. Are they shutting down previously accessible land? Removing their ag products from the American market and shipping to China? Taking some sort of concrete action to support Chinese interests? All I’m seeing in your posts is a lot of unsupported speculation.
At the end if the day, talk is cheap. I’ve heard all kinds of outlandish accusations leveled at APR (or really any organization that doesn’t fully align with some political ideology) without a single scrap of real evidence. If there’s some demonstrable evidence of these accusations you’re making, please post them. I think many members here, including myself, would be open to seeing such as it may change our perspective. But if you’re just going to complain about one specific entity playing within the bounds of tax law and private property rights then don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Funny shit. Thanks for the entertainment. My comments were pointed at the MT elected officials, but it seems to have set you into a tailspin, so against better judgement, I'll add a few responses to your questions or claims.
I have no idea why the Board Member page got taken down. Makes no matter to me. If you're that concerned, you should call and ask them. Let us know the answer.
I have no idea who the top 20, 50, or 100 donors are. Do you know that about your church, or any other non-profit? Probably not. Do you apply a different standard to AP, because you have a rub with them? Why don't you call UPOM and ask them these same questions and share the answers here.
I've not received a dime from AP. I doubt I ever will. Not sure where you would dream up that kind of BS. You imply that my positions are driven my some economic or other motive. You're wrong.
You display some serious ignorance in your comment that somehow my comments here "show my true colors." If you followed what I write or say, you'd know that I gave them some pretty heavy criticism when they started, as they did a shitty job of trying to understand the issues and interests of locals where they were buying land. They are still carrying the baggage from those missteps. They acknowledge that mistake and are trying to learn from it.
None of that changes the reality that the Montana elected officials are doing nothing helpful and just posturing for the headlines. They know it and we know it, but they do it anyhow, as that is the political time we live in.
That said, AP does things that many others don't. They work on a free market system of willing seller-willing buyer. Many of their critics fail to realize how hypocritical it is to oppose systems that result in the highest possible price to the seller, likely a seller whose family has spent a century scratching out a living through two World Wars, a Dust Bowl, a Depression, a few Energy Crisis, 15%+ interest rates, and somehow they are still standing. These folks deserve every penny they get in a sale and they owe nobody an explanation or apology for such.
It seems the loudest critics bitch because they couldn't afford to pay the sellers FWV, which implies they expect their selling neighbors are somehow obligated to take a lower price and not sell to AP or any other group. That's laughable for someone to advocate against AP being a buyer at true market value, then also try to say they are private property rights/free market advocates. Spare me the facade. Their positions are complete hypocrisy.
Here's a few things AP does, that is a bit different than most:
- AP buys lands at FMV that are currently inaccessible to hunting and they enroll most of that in public access programs. That's a benefit for the public.
- AP allows the public to access otherwise inaccessible public lands by crossing AP lands. No permission required. Show me anyone else who does that.
- AP leases most of their lands back to local producers. Last I talked to them, they had 8,000 cattle being run on their properties and 900 bison. If 900 bison are "the end of the cowboy" (which it is not), then those cowboys have a hell of a lot bigger problems on their plate.
- AP does a great job of enhancing the conservation attributes of the lands they acquire. That helps water quality, controls invasive weeds, reduces erosion, and many other values. That's a positive in the eyes of most people and helpful for their neighbors.
I suggest you take your comments about non-profits, transparency, donations, etc and apply that the churches, with churches being among the largest recipients of tax-deductible charitable donations. They are also tax exempt, just like AP. Go look at the portfolio of say, the Mormon Church, the largest landowner of the many churches that own land. Look at how big of landowners they are. Here's a starting place of large institutional landowners in the US. Hopefully you'll ask the same of these groups. Then start on the foreign owners of US lands - https://www.agweb.com/news/business...try-owns-most-farmland-u-s-hint-its-not-china
Oh, then their is this list of individual landowners - https://landreport.com/land-report-100. Get after them and start saving some cowboys from Ted Turner, Stan Kronke, the Wilks Brothers, and the many timber baron heirs whose families made fortunes by skinning the US Government in the land giveaways during the 1880-1900.
As for my comments of the elected officials of Montana not wanting to miss the "hypocrisy train," I stand by that comment. They are doing this for nothing more than virtue signaling. Their signaling will have no impact on anything and will not "Save the Cowboy."
If the MT elected officials wanted to "Save the Cowboy" they'd do something worthwhile, like getting rid of these dumb ass tariffs that are a tax on these hard working producers. They wouldn't push back on the stupid idea of importing beef from countries like Argentina that have far lower animal health standards and such efforts lowers the value of US produced beef. They would force the the DOJ and the FTC to apply anti-trust laws to the meat packing industry that is controlled by a small handful of powerful families/companies (donors), all to the detriment of the ag producers.
I notice you're not asking for transparency of the donors who are at Mara Lago playing golf, or those who were spending time with Biden at his events, or those who are wining and dining the Montana elected officials who did this virtue signaling. I'm a lot more concerned about that money and the access being paid for with that dark money than I am a non-profit group paying overworked ag producers Fair Market Value for their lands.
I could go on and on about issues these elected official could work on that would help Montana ag producers. I've been the CPA for many of them for decades. I see their numbers. I know how hard they work and what risk they take for very little returns. The virtue signaling bullshit of elected officials doesn't impress me, and over a cup of coffee with most of these producers it's pretty clear they're not real impressed by the "performative politics" that the Montana delegation just participated in.
Care to tell us what UPOM leadership has done to "Save the Cowboy." Petty litigation that they always lose doesn't count as "Saving the Cowboy."
I'm usually impartial about AP, letting them do their thing with willing sellers. Given the hypocrisy so many have and the way it pisses off the Faux Free Marketeers, I'm surely going to ask them to join me for a podcast discussion. Hell, if this kind of BS continues by the MT elected officials, I might reach out and see if I can do a fund raiser for AP. That ought to blow a gasket on all the hypocrites.
If it seems like I've had my fill with elected officials who think they need to protect landowners from themselves, that would be correct. I've spent way too much time in front of legislators, county commissioners, and other elected/appointed officials who claim to be in favor of private property rights, yet they want to restrict the property rights of landowners (mostly ag producers) who want to enter into a conservation easement to sell/donate one or more of their property rights.
Most of these same folks who I interact with on conservation easements are drinking the UPOM "Save the Cowboy" water. I attended a conference of elected officials in September, serving as a panelist with actual hands-on experience helping landowners with their property rights, occasionally in the form of a conservation easement. In the Q&A session, and the follow ups afterwards, it was obvious how much misinformation is out there on the topic of conservation easements and what actually constitutes the bundle of property rights.
Many of the folks are in the legislature. Some of what comes out of there should be an embarrassment to the people making such false claims and promoting such terrible legislation. Yet, they know so little about the topics they are legislating that they don't even realize how embarrassing some of their comments/ideas are.
So yeah, I'm over the "property rights fakers." They're full of shit. They are more worried about their own principles, however misinformed and misguided those principles might be, than they are helping these landowners solve problems. When I ask them why they oppose conservation easements when it is such a blatant infringement of property rights, they never have a good answer, just "I'm ideologically opposed to it."
OK, so you're "ideologically opposed" to a system built on private property rights. Got it.
Most of these same folks who I interact with on conservation easements are drinking the UPOM "Save the Cowboy" water. I attended a conference of elected officials in September, serving as a panelist with actual hands-on experience helping landowners with their property rights, occasionally in the form of a conservation easement. In the Q&A session, and the follow ups afterwards, it was obvious how much misinformation is out there on the topic of conservation easements and what actually constitutes the bundle of property rights.
Many of the folks are in the legislature. Some of what comes out of there should be an embarrassment to the people making such false claims and promoting such terrible legislation. Yet, they know so little about the topics they are legislating that they don't even realize how embarrassing some of their comments/ideas are.
So yeah, I'm over the "property rights fakers." They're full of shit. They are more worried about their own principles, however misinformed and misguided those principles might be, than they are helping these landowners solve problems. When I ask them why they oppose conservation easements when it is such a blatant infringement of property rights, they never have a good answer, just "I'm ideologically opposed to it."
OK, so you're "ideologically opposed" to a system built on private property rights. Got it.
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