FOREST TAXATION LAWS 205 



FOREST TAXATION LAWS 



Forest taxation is a phase of the forestry problem that still 

 remains to be solved in its wider and general aspects. It is an 

 important issue in the whole question, but one concerning which com- 

 paratively little practical information is available, and on which only 

 inadequate tests have been made. Enactment of special forest tax 

 legislation has been tried in a handful of states, but the results are as 

 yet more or less inconclusive. It is now being agitated in a number 

 of other states. 



The fundamental aim of such special legislation is, of course, to 

 encourage private reforestation and timber growing. The central 

 theory, then, must be so to postpone or adjust the burden of taxation 

 that private initiative may be induced to undertake the production of 

 a slow-growing crop. Thus all laws that have been enacted so far, 

 and that have proved to have any promise of value, are those setting 

 a nominal tax for the land growing timber and levying a cutting or 

 yield tax on the timber when taken out. 



New Jersey, Iowa, Kentucky, Idaho, Maine, Colorado, West 

 Virginia, Tennessee, Illinois, Washington, North Carolina, Alabama, 

 Texas, Oregon, Montana, Maryland, California and Wisconsin, 

 among the organized forestry states, have not enacted special forest 

 taxation laws. An effort to pass such a law failed in Maine, and in 

 Colorado bills have been filed consistently without progress. In 

 California, and in Oregon, acts passed by the Legislatures were 

 vetoed by the Governors on the grounds of unconstitutionality. In 

 Texas and Wisconsin there is considerable sentiment in support of 

 such a move. 



New York has three forest taxation laws on the statute books but 

 there is so much red tape connected with them that they have proved 

 virtually useless. Rhode Island has a more or less ineffective law, 

 the revision of which is now being urged. Pennsylvania, Massachu- 

 setts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Louisiana and Indiana are the six 

 states with laws of interest in connection with this problem although 

 they have not in any instance been widely availed of. 



There are barriers to the enactment of such legislation in several 

 states where the constitutions impose limitations on such forms of 

 special statutes. Another problem is that the forest land areas fre- 



