FIFTH NATIONAI, CONSERVATION CONGRESS 129 



tax becomes large and by the population that has more to gain from forest conser- 

 vation than has the present population. 



Even with these expedients, however, there remain several essential points 

 of principle and detail which must be settled more by practicable compromise than 

 by nice adherence to theory. Mature timber of the West today is not wholly 

 the product of the owner as the second crop of the future will be or as the mature 

 forests of Germany are. His carrying charges entitle him to some -absolution 

 as a producer, but not complete absolution also for the stored natural values he 

 originally acquired at small cost. Moreover, the revenue requirements of growing 

 States and the difficulty of meeting them by a struggling population tend against 

 any highly radical reduction of tax burdens upon any class other than the poorest 

 and most numerous, even though it may be theoretically just or for the good of 

 the entire community in the long run. 



Of the ways suggested for fixing the amount of the proposed future tax, 

 two seem simplest. One is a yield tax on the timber similar to that we have 

 discussed for eastern conditions, either with or without deferring the usual annual 

 tax on the land. If the latter is partially deferred, it must be added to the yield 

 tax. The latter is made a certain percentage of the value of the crop, arrived at 

 by a comparison of an average general property tax rate with modern income tax 

 ideas, and increasing by a sliding scale, until' a maximum is reached, to avoid hard- 

 ship in case of early cutting. Such fixing of an arbitrary yet generally just per- 

 centage yield tax is not a particularly difficult financial calculation if cutting is 

 not necessarily deferred until after a certain maximum tax is reached. Then 

 complication appears. A sliding scale that will work plausibly up to a miximum 

 reached at say 20 years, must then either remain uniform, which will discriminate 

 between timber cut at 20 years and 40 years, or continue stepping up until it de- 

 stroys values. Consequently such a tax which might be desirable where holding 

 is purely speculative and undesirable might be undesirable where holding is for 

 community good and not for the owner's good. 



A suggested alternative for Pacific coast conditions is abandonment, as long 

 as the stored excess supply continues, of the theoretically correct yield tax basis 

 and adoption of an expedient which does not change the present tax but post- 

 pones its payment until the crop supplies the money. Instead of fixing a per- 

 centage on accepted general laws, it calculates the accumulation of the present 

 burden in each State, by using fair averages, but does not collect till the timber 

 is cut. 



This also is a fairly simple process. Take as a basis the average assessed 

 value of accessible timberland and the average rate thereon. Reduce the latter 

 to a rate accomplishing the same taxation on the same timberland at its average 

 full valuation (should assessment average about half the true value now, the 

 rate also would be halved). This rate would obviously be an equivalent yield 

 tax on timber cut immediately, except that it is based on both land and timber. 

 Next find a fair present proportion for the land as separate from the timber, 

 easily done by comparing present taxation of similar cut-over land, and reduce 

 the rate accordingly. It is then only necessary to provide for taxing the land 



