The federal spending bill includes an effort to halt the abuse of land conservation tax incentives, CNBC reports.

The $1.7 trillion bill includes language to stop the abuse of federal conservation easements, an incentive that allows property owners to take a charitable deduction to help offset financial loss when they give up certain rights to develop land. There has been repeated abuse of the incentives, as groups of investors may obtain inflated land appraisals to receive higher deductions. According to Lori Faeth, senior director of government relations at the Land Trust Alliance, a national land conservation organization that has advocated for reform, the bill removes the ability of participants in abusive syndicated transactions to even file for a deduction.

 “It will drive a stake through the heart of this abuse,” said Faeth. “It will save the taxpayers literally billions of dollars and it will ensure that the thousands of transactions and conservation donations that happen each year in the name of true charity and true philanthropy will continue to go on.”

The IRS will continue to pursue enforcement of the more than 450 cases already in the tax courts.

“Those who contemplate promoting fraudulent tax shelters involving syndicated conservation easements—and the accountants, appraisers, and tax preparers who create and execute strategies to assist them—should know that the Tax Division and IRS will unravel even the most elaborate schemes,” said Stuart M. Goldberg, acting deputy assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

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