FOREST TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES 387 
reference to the effect upon classification of transfer of the property except as 
noted in X below. } 
VII-3. Declassification is effected by the commission upon the basis of facts 
and recommendations submitted to it by the board, when in the commission’s 
judgment it is to the public interest or when in its judgment the lands are not 
being used to accomplish the purposes of the law. Any taxpayer may have a 
hearing before the board on any subject pertaining to the activities of the board 
and may appeal to the courts from the board’s or the commission’s final decision. 
The declassification tax, when declassification is because of improper use, is the 
excess, if any, for the period during which the property was classified, of the ad 
valorem property tax on comparable land [evidently intended to include the 
trees] over the amount of the forest fees paid. This excess is subject to the same 
interest, penalty, and cost charges as apply to delinquent ad valorem property 
taxes and is collected as are such delinquent property taxes. 
VIII. Any person who knowingly makes any false return or representations 
under this law shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and be punished by a 
fine of not less than $100 nor more than $1,000 or by imprisonment for not less 
than 30 days nor more than 1 year or by both. 
X. The board on behalf of the State and at the owner’s request may, on and 
after July 1, 1933, enter into a contract with a landowner for the purpose of 
developing and growing forest crops on the land for a specific period, if in the 
board’s judgment such an agreement will accomplish the purposes of this law. 
Property under contract is taxed annually as classified land under this law. Con- 
tracts are recorded by the board in the deed books of the county, and the prop- 
erty may be transferred when, in the judgment of the board, it will not defeat 
the purposes of the law and when the State and its taxing agencies are amply 
protected against any loss of revenue. Contracts may be cancelled by the board 
upon the failure of the owner to comply with the terms and conditions thereof or 
with the forest laws of the State that affect the lands covered by such contracts. 
A contract, unless it is renewed by mutual agreement, terminates at the end of a 
specified period, which period must not exceed the number of years estimated by 
the board as necessary to mature the forest crop. 
EXPERIENCE AND CriTIcAL ANALYSIS 
The experience with optional yield-tax laws is that they have had 
no substantial direct effect on the forest tax situation. As shown in 
table 119, the portion of the private forest area to which the law is 
applied is less than 1 percent in 7 of the 12 States having laws of this 
type, namely, Alabama, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Connecticut, 
Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania. Even the most widely 
used optional yield-tax laws have classified under them no more than 
2.1 percent of the total privately owned forest area of the State con- 
cerned. It is the usual history of such laws that immediately after 
their passage some lands were classified at a rapid rate. However, 
as soon as the owners who were active in backing the passage of the 
law and those who were aroused to take action by the publicity attend- 
ing its passage had had time to get the classification of their lands 
accepted by the responsible State authority, the additional area classi- 
fied each year was much reduced. Thus the law has remained appli- 
cable to a relatively small area, most of which was classified within a 
few years of the law’s adoption. A study of the nature of the optional 
laws suggests a number of reasons for their failure to exert any large 
and direct influence on the taxation of forest lands. 
The optional feature is in itself a handicap, being in general foreign 
to taxation practice. By definition a tax is a compulsory contribu- 
tion to government, and to introduce any optional features is to some 
extent to lessen the tax character of the contribution. An option sug- 
gests that a special favor is being granted, even though in fact the 
law may not go beyond the bounds of fairness to both the forest 
owner and the general public. A property owner is deterred from 
