93() JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



The commonly accepted criterion for sale value or assessment for 

 taxes of forest lands is the present market value of the land itself and 

 the timber crop standing upon it, the latter being usually the larger item. 

 The value of the land is based upon the value of similar land in the 

 vicinity without timber upon it, often used only for pasturage. And the 

 value of the timber, except in very young stands, is ordinarily based on 

 the value of the material in the trees for immediate cutting. This basis 

 of valuation is reasonable enough if the timber is cut at once, for then 

 presumably the return or profit is also secured at once. But more often 

 than not the crop is not harvested immediately, and sometimes not for 

 many years. Under such circumstances the usual methods of taxation 

 work out most unfairly for the owner, as Mr. Hastings clearly demon- 

 strates in his article. 



The plan has been suggested of taxing the land annually and delaying 

 any taxation of the timber until it is harvested, when it is taxed on the 

 basis of the market value on the stump at the tax rate for the year 

 concerned. Some reasonable objections can be urged against this sys- 

 tem, one of the strong ones, it seems to me, being in cases of changes of 

 ownership. A sales tax might possibly be devised to apply on every 

 transfer, based perhaps on an estimate of the increase in value of the 

 timber during the tenure of the seller, but in that case it would seem 

 that the final tax should be modified accordingly. Or changes in 

 ownership could be disregarded on the basis of the old warning, 

 "caveat emptor," the buyer taking into consideration the fact that if 

 he harvests the timber crop he will have to pay the taxes upon it. 



The whole subject presents serious problems, it is obvious, but it 

 appears to me that any discussion or solution must of necessity take 

 into account the fundamental point that timber lands, particularly 

 unregulated forests (which are almost the only kinds we have in this 

 country), are distinctly dififerent from most business propositions in 

 that their return or profit comes only at very long intervals of years. 



Mr. Hastings makes one or two statements which I cannot let pass 

 entirely unquestioned. For instance, he states that a harvest tax 

 "penalizes thrift and good husbandry." Is it not accepted as axiomatic 

 that, with a uniform tax rate, the more thrifty and prosperous and 

 productive are much more easily able to bear their proportionate share 

 of the taxes levied on a community than the slothful and shiftless? 

 And is not this as it should be ? 



