Grand juries in Atlanta, St. Louis and Charlotte, N.C., are all considering cases where organizers behind land deals meant to preserve green space allegedly cheated the federal government out of millions by overvaluing the deductions, according to Bloomberg. The cases specifically involve what's known as "syndicated conservation easements." Normally, an easement such as this is nontransferrable from person to person, according to the Land Trust Alliance. But over the past few years, some have used limited liability companies and other so-called “pass-through” entities to try to “syndicate” tax deductions—in essence, to sell them. Thus, they have created a market for such deductions in a way that some conservationists say undermines the program's point.

Furthermore, the IRS has said that many of these deals are based on inflated property values: In 2019, the agency estimated, taxpayers filed for deductions averaging 5.1 times their investment—with the ratio reaching 6.6 times for the top 10 percent of those filers. Furthermore, the agency has argued that the deals serve no purpose other than tax avoidance. 

This has led to a wave of tax fraud prosecutions across the country. As a result of this increased scrutiny, Bloomberg said that investors are increasingly shying away from such easement deals, fearful of getting caught up in the crackdown; this, in turn, has prompted several class action lawsuits from investors who said the organizers lied about the nature of the deals.