State and local governments in this country have adopted a number of policies to regulate the conversion of rural land to developed uses. One of the most significant and least understood is preferential assessment of rural land under the real property tax, often called use-value assessment (UVA) or current-use assessment. This book explains and analyzes the critical questions raised by this fiscal tool for farmland preservation.

Under UVA, the assessments of various parcels of land within a given state may vary tremendously from property to property. A tract that is zoned...