Farmers will avoid some tax liabilities and keep more of their money thanks to amendments made in 2012 to Michigan’s tax policies, according to Rebecca Park, a state lobbyist with Michigan Farm Bureau.

Michigan Farm News reported that Senate Bill 862, sponsored by Sen. Bruce Caswell and signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder as Public Act 368 of 2012 to takes effect March 28, will help some farmers avoid an 18-mill property tax assessment.

Under current law, when local assessors reevaluate properties, they are guided by property assessment rules. Farmland is exempt from the 18-mill tax, but contiguous properties might not be if they aren’t used for agriculture purposes and have separate parcel descriptions.

Before the law takes effect on March 28, assessors were directed to tax every separate parcel individually, whether it was owned by the same person or not. Farmers who bought contiguous properties but did not have them joined under a single property description would see any or all contiguous property taxed at the full rate if it was not qualified agricultural land.

The new law does not direct local governments to join properties together, and in many cases, assessors may choose not to do that for a variety of reasons. But when the new law takes effect on March 28, having theoretically dozens of separate parcel descriptions wouldn’t matter as long as they were all contiguous and all were owned by the same owner.