108 FOREST VALUATION 



pointed out, property is not assessed at full value and even in states 

 where the law demands this it is not done consistently. In most 

 states the assessment is at about 2/3 value for rural property and 

 varies from twenty-five to one hundred per cent in city property 

 with large amounts escaping taxation altogether. 



c. When farm taxes were gathered as "tithes," or one-tenth 

 of the crop, not in money but in grain, etc., the tax was clearly a 

 personal tax and of the nature of income tax, on gross income. 



When this changed to a fixed money tax, based on the value of 

 the farm and this latter based on the fertility of the farm, it lost the 

 character of a personal tax though still of the nature of a tax on an 

 implied or estimated income. 



Today in the United States the farm or forest is assessed at its 

 sale value; the tax books are based on the property, it is the prop- 

 erty which is taxed regardless of ownership. If the owner neglects 

 to pay, it is not the owner who is looked up and addressed, but the 

 property itself which is at once taken charge of and sold for taxes, 

 etc. 



The property tax as it applies to real estate, farm and forest, 

 then, is no longer a personal tax, it ignores the owner and condi- 

 tion of ownership, is not concerned whether the owner is able finan- 

 cially, or poor and in debt, whether or not he makes any income from 

 this property. 



d. In Europe forests are taxed in various ways. Usually the 

 forest property is so regulated that a yearly income is secured and 

 the ordinary forest property resembles the farm and the ability of 

 the owner to pay is much more easily determined. 



The three forms of forest taxation most generally applied in 

 central Europe are: ground tax; income tax; property tax. 



1. The ground Tax, "Grundsteuer," or "Ertragsteuer," of the 

 Germans is a tax on the soil, based on its estimated income or else 

 on an official estimate of the productivity, "Kataster," and is used 

 exactly like the ordinary tax on farm property or real estate in the 

 United States ; where the farm is largely assessed according to the 

 crop it produces. 



2. The property tax of European states is a regulator in cases 

 where the property does not produce an income in keeping with its 

 value. An empty lot in the city is only an expense to the owner but 

 it has a sale value. Similarly a farm in the outskirts of a city may 

 be worth a thousand dollars an acre and yet as a farm may not make 

 as large a net income as another farm three miles away and valued 



