How a Georgia Pine Farm Became a Huge Tax Deduction

CRAWFORD, Ga.—Baptist minister John M. McGinnis left his family a 434-acre pine-tree farm when he died in 2006, writing in his will that his heirs could eventually sell it for a “hunk of cash.”

In 2020, some McGinnis family members sold off three-fifths of the property for $310,000. By the end of 2021, the Oglethorpe County land had been sold again, this time to a business that raised $10.7 million from investors in a land-conservation deal. That transaction could yield its investors millions of dollars more in tax deductions—as well as scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service.

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