160 Canadian Forestry Journal. 



2. The Rate Basis: Therii is a fundamental diflference 

 between levying an annual tax on properties producing an 

 annual income and levying an annual tax on properties producing 

 an income at intervals of a considerable number of years only. 



3. Woodland Tax Exemption: — Whether there be any 

 special economic reasons why lands bearing wood crops should 

 be taxed at a different rate from lands producing other crops. 



7. — The Assessment Basis. 



It has been the custom and the law of most states and 

 provinces in North America to include the value of the standing 

 timber with that of the soil in assessing woodlands for taxation 

 purposes. This is both unjust and unwise, and is certain to 

 result detrimentally to woodlands wherever practised. 



Forest crops differ from field crops in that the product of 

 any one year's growth cannot be harvested at the end of the 

 growing season, as is the rule with other crops. Thus the 

 portion of wood which is produced during, say, the fifth, tenth, 

 or fifteenth year of a tree's or plantations' growth must remain 

 on the ground until there has accumulated fifty, sixty, or seventy 

 years' growth, when the whole may be sold to advantage. The 

 growth produced during the earlier years of the tree's life is to 

 all intents and purposes simply stored in the trunk of the tree 

 until such time as the whole has reached a merchantable size. To 

 add the value of a forty year's growth of pine trees to the value 

 of the soil for taxation purposes is really as imfair in principle 

 as to add the value of the last forty year's grain crops to the 

 assessment valuation of a grain field. The forty years' growth 

 of pine is not there for investment purposes. It is there simply 

 because the nature of the crop requires the accumulation of 

 decades of growth to make the whole merchantable. 



It cannot be too clearly kept in mind in this connection that 

 the soil and climate, and they alone, are the natural producing 

 factors whether the crop be wood or wheat. To add the value 

 of standing timber to the assessment is clearly a case of double 

 taxation in that to the value of the producing agent — the soil — 

 has been added the value of its product — the trees. 



Unjust in principle, taxation of the growling trees is nothing 

 short of disastrous in practice in that it provides an incentive to 

 prematurely harvest the crop, the proceeds from which may then 

 be invested where it will not be subject to taxation. 



Fortunately in Ontario the law requiring that woodlands 

 be assessed according to their sale value — including the timber 

 — has not been generally enforced by the township assessors. 

 The law, however, as it stands is vicious in principle and should 



