51 



(e) Special contracts to cover the obligations incurred by state and 



owner. 



(f) Cumbersome procedure in accounting and in payment of prod- 



ucts taxes. 



(g) Cumbersome efforts to distinguish between age classes, and 



land bearing mature timber versus plantations, which 

 features are most difficult to administer as part of a tax 

 system. 



(h) Burdensome requirements on state forests in the line of in- 

 inspection of small widely scattered tracts to see that 

 various phases of the law relation to valuation, practice 

 and products tax, are carried out, for which if the law were 

 a success, these officials would have absolutely no time 

 unless the staff were increased. 



These laws all attempt to shift the burden of taxation, either to other 

 land owners or as in Pennsylvania, to the state instead of trying to apply 

 a universal tax reform, and permitting the operation of this reform to 

 effect such improvements as other conditions render possible. 



What we need is a plan which will not only remove the inequality 

 of the present system, but which will remove it on timber as a class of 

 property throughout the state, namely, for all owners of timber. There 

 are three requirements of such a law. 



1. All forest economists are agreed that the value of timber should 

 be separated from that of land for purposes of taxation, and that the 

 timber should, if possible, be taxed in the form of a products tax when cut 

 in lieu of annual taxes. 



2. It is not generally agreed that local revenue from taxation should 

 be maintained, and the products tax substituted gradually. 



3. It is not so universally conceded, but I believe is to be equally 

 essential that virgin timber should continue to bear an annual property 

 tax and that the reform should apply to future, artificially grown timber. 



The law which comes nearest to satisfying these requirements is that of 

 Massachusetts. This in turn was based on the Connecticut law. 



The Connecticut law required the separate valuation of standing, mer- 

 chantable timber from land but it attempts to fix the value of land for 

 fifty years and to limit the tax rate to ten mills. Then to avoid specula- 

 tion, it limits the value of such lands to twenty-five dollars per acre. 

 Standing timber is taxed annually until cut, but young timber will pay 

 only a products tax. 



Massachusetts was . the first state to establish the principle that no 

 effort should be made to fix or lower the assessed value of bare timber, 

 the land is assessed at its fair value as bare land and pays annual taxes. 

 This value may be adjusted when changing economic conditions make it 

 necessary. This brings all land of whatever character, value or location 

 under the operation of the law provided only that the owner desires to 

 take advantage of it. The merits of this universal classification are : 



1. That it wipes out the necessity of classifying lands. 



