In real estate generally, the three key items are location, location, and location. In Dixieland Boondockery, s/a/k/a syndicated conservation easements, the three keys are “valuation, valuation, and valuation.” So said Judge Mark V. Holmes all the way back on 5/12/20: “Conservation-easement cases might have been more reasonably resolved case-by-case in contests of valuation. The syndicated conservation-easement deals with wildly inflated deductions on land bought at much lower prices would seem perfectly fine fodder for feeding into a valuation grinder. Valuation law is reasonably well known, and valuation cases are exceptionally capable of settlement.” See my blogpost “They Always Must Be With Us,” 5/12/20.*

Judge Emin (“Eminent”) Toro couldn’t agree more. He kicks to the curb IRS’ donative intent quid pro quo argument; the benefit comes from the IRC, not the donee. The usual IRS sniping at the documentation underlying the donation, the text of the appraisal, and the qualifications of the appraiser all  founder on extensive somber reasoning and copious citation of accumulated precedent, so that Judge Eminent Toro’s opinion in Seabrook Property, LLC, Seabrook Manager, LLC, Tax Matters Partner, Petitioner, T. C. Memo.  2025-6, filed 1/21/25, is like Old Home Week through page thirty-four.

So, thirty-five (count ’em, thirty-five) pages into the seventy-eight pages of Judge Eminent Toro’s prose, we come to valuation. And it’s the standard mix-and-match: Seabrook’s claimed easement valuation of $32,581,443 at p. 1 shrinks to $4,718,000 by p. 76. With a 40% Section 6662(h) chop for dessert.

Btw, note T. C. 2025-6, at p. 4. If ever Judge Toro retires from the Bench, he has a great future as a real estate broker.

* https://wp.me/p1eNMc-4lG