Recent concern has risen among forestry professionals that forest landowners are unaware of federal income tax provisions available to them that make forest management more cost effective. This concern specifically focuses on nine provisions. These nine provisions are: the treatment of timber income as capital gain, the deduction of annual management costs, depreciation of tangible property, the section 179 deduction, recovery of investment through depletion, the reforestation tax credit, amortization of reforestation costs over eight years, the exclusion of cost-share payments from gross income and deductions for casualty losses. The publication is divided into three major parts. In Part I the specifics of the nine provisions are covered in detail according to the current Internal Revenue Code. Current income tax rates are examined. The Passive Activity Loss Rules (PALS) are reviewed in terms of how they affect landowner eligibility to use the nine provisions for current loss deductions. PALS limitations incurred by holding forestland as a passive trade or business, or active trade or business are examined. Advantages and disadvantages to holding forestland as an investment are also examined. In Part II, the effects of timber income taxes on forestland investments are explored. Examples of taxes incurred (including the alternative minimum tax) when timber is sold are given. Tax calculations are based on a typical southern landowner involved with the management of a loblolly pine plantation. In Chapter 6, effects of using the nine income tax provisions on the land expectation value (LEV) of a typical forestland tract are examined for a high-income forest landowner and a low-income forest landowner engaged in both intensive and non-intensive loblolly pine management in the South. Cumulative effects of using or not using the nine income tax provisions in each regime are shown to dramatically influence LEV, and the importance of tax provision awareness is emphasized. In Chapter 7, the complexity of complying with timber tax law is examined. This chapter' s purpose is to provide an example of the detail involved in taking advantage of the tax laws. A demonstration of tax complexity is made with income tax calculations for the medium-income landowner in Chapter 6. The landowner first thins his 120-acre plantation in tax year 2003, and forms required by the IRS to use the tax provisions are identified and discussed. Although use of the provisions is essential for maximum economic returns, their complexity can discourage landowners from electing to use them. Part III presents the results and discussion of a mail survey sent to members of the American Tree Farm System (ATFS). In the survey questionnaire, landowners were asked if they were aware of the nine tax provisions, and if they used them where applicable. They were also asked why they failed to use certain provisions when they know about them. Various hypotheses are tested in Chapter 13. The demographics of ATFS members are compared with the demographics of the general U.S. forest landowner population as described by Birch (1996). The ATFS population was more timber production as well as more land investment oriented. ATFS members have significantly more harvesting experience than the general landowner. Tree Farmers typically own larger parcel sizes than the average landowner. ATFS members belong to a forestry organization, and ATFS members are more motivated in terms of forest management than the typical landowner. The results show that ATFS awareness and use of the tax provisions are low. Thus, increased efforts by natural resource professionals to inform landowners of their tax options are indicated. Caution should be used when interpreting survey results, because over 70% of ATFS members use tax professionals to file their income taxes. Consequently, actual use of tax provisions could be higher than predicted if the tax professionals are well versed in dealing with timber income. / Master of Science

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1978 L55 / Master of Science

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This study is an application of production-cost duality theory. Duality theory is reviewed for the competitive and rate-of-return regulated firm. The cost function is developed for the nuclear electric power generating industry of the United States using capital, fuel and labor factor inputs. A comparison is made between the Generalized Box-Cox (GBC) and Fourier Flexible (FF) functional forms. The GBC functional form nests the Generalized Leontief, Generalized Square Root Quadratic and Translog functional forms, and is based upon a second-order Taylor-series expansion. The FF form follows from a Fourier-series expansion in sine and cosine terms using the Sobolev norm as the goodness of fit measure. The Sobolev norm takes into account first and second derivatives. The cost function and two factor shares are estimated as a system of equations using maximum likehood techniques, with Additive Standard Normal and Logistic Normal error distributions. In summary, none of the special cases of the GBC function form are accepted. Homotheticity of the underlying production technology can be rejected for both the GBC and FF forms, leaving only the unrestricted versions supported by the data. Residual analysis indicates a slight improvement in skewness and kurtosis for univariate and multivariate cases when the Logistic Normal distribution is used.

No description available.

In this doctoral dissertation is solved the relation between success in a field of mergers and acquisitions activities with connecting to existence of "agency costs" in stated companies. A domain of mergers and acquisitions is a very complex and dynamic section that includes not only economic relations connected with joinnig enterprises, but also accountancy and law environment, where mergers and acquisitions are realized.

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand, September 2016 / The research investigates the contribution of the low-fee private school sector towards access to quality education by examining two models of low-fee private schools in the Gauteng province, South Africa. The study generates insights about the contribution to quality education and implications of a growing low-fee private school sector for equity in the South African context. It looks at the factors that encourage the growth of the sector, the nature and challenges of running private schools and the quality of education offered by low-fee private schools. The study uses an exploratory qualitative research methodology and a case study design. Elite interviews with three experts; three founding directors; principals and two teachers from two low-fee private schools (one non-profit and the other one for-profit) in Bramley, Johannesburg were used as data collection instruments. The findings reveal that government support for private schools post-1994; excess demand due to middle class population growth in certain areas and differentiated demand owed to better quality and faith-based education are the key factors driving the growth of the private school sector in South Africa. The quality of education offered by low-fee private schools in South Africa is different across schools and mirrors the inequalities in the public school system. With reference to the literature, it is clear that the low-fee private school sector plays a noteworthy role, ensuring that some learners have access to schools in areas where government has not been able to keep up with the middle class population growth. Low-fee private schools give parents the opportunity to choose faith-based schools in a country where the public education system is faith-neutral. Although low-fee private schools are viewed as an alternative from public schools due to the poor quality offered by the latter, it is important to note that there are great differences with the quality offered by different schools in the private sector. / MT2017

Photocopy of typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

No description available.