Forest Taxation and the Single Tax 547 



There is, consequently, nothing in reason to prevent the tax 

 being applied in the form of a cutting or yield tax. In fact it 

 can be shown that such method of application is the one simple 

 and sensible way to apply it to timber and mineral resources 

 as well. Both of these resources have a utility value entirely 

 different from the utility value of either the soil or a water right. 

 The two latter may be used, so far as we know, year after year, 

 indefinitely, and it is therefore proper that they be taxed annually. 

 But a given group of trees in the forest or a given portion of a 

 vein of ore once cut or mined may not be so utilized again. That 

 value which attaches to them in their natural state, therefore, 

 cannot justly be taxed more times than it can be taken from 

 nature. In the case of the forest, nature may produce more 

 trees in the same place, but their value will be a new and entirely 

 distinct value. 



And if, therefore, we tax a piece of virgin timbered land by 

 laying an annual tax on the market value of the bare ground 

 and a yield tax on the value of any timber that is cut, how will 

 this force the destruction of our forests? Such a method of 

 taxing forests, the committee tells us in the main body of its 

 report, will not force the cutting and destruction of our forests, 

 but will aid in their conser\ation and conversion into well-man- 

 aged and regulated forests. 



The committee's fear that the adoption of the single tax will 

 operate to the detriment of the practice of forestry may likewise 

 be set at rest. As a tax exclusively levied upon natural values, 

 labor and capital values of all kinds are expressly exem.pted under 

 the single tax. Now those who have attempted to practise for- 

 estry themselves or have induced others to do so know that it 

 involves the investment of both labor and capital. So that to 

 the extent that forestry is practised under a single tax regime 

 there would, to that extent at least, be a decrease in taxes on the 

 value of the forest until with the planted or regulated forest 

 there would be no tax on the value of the forest at all. The 

 soil would, of course, be taxed annually according to its market 

 value as it should be. Instead, therefore, of being destructive 

 in its effects, the single tax would be constructive so far as our 

 forests and forestry are concerned, whether applied to the 

 virgin forest, the planted forest or any of the transitional forms. 



