440 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
purposes as current expense, this loss can be claimed as a reduction in 
the income of the owner, who thereby escapes taxation on a correspond- 
ing amount of his income from other sources. The costs of making a 
plantation thus go to swell a deficit, on the amount of which income 
tax and surtax are returned. Therefore a wealthy owner, who pays 
in taxes 66 percent of any amount of income over £50,000 ($240, 000) 
a year, may recover from the inland revenue 66 percent of the cost of 
making or maintaining young plantations by using this cost to reduce 
his taxable income. Once an occupier has put any piece of woodland 
under schedule D, he must keep it there, but his successor, either after 
a sale or his death, can elect to put it under schedule B. Thus, if 
plantations are not felled within the lifetime of their maker, the 
income which they ultimately yield need not be taxed except under 
schedules A and B. The value of the timber cut in 1 year may be 
£100 ($490) per acre, but the owner is taxed as though his annual 
income were about Bs. ($1.22) a year. Under such circumstances a 
high rate of taxation provides a subsidy on the making of plantations, 
and there are some owners who are increasing their annual plantings 
as a result of the rise in income tax and surtax in 1930. 
The high rates of the death taxes imposed in Great Britain have 
doubtless caused estate owners to cut mature timber in order to secure 
the cash with which to meet their obligations. This tendency to cut 
timber to meet death taxes is discouraged by the provision that both 
estate and succession taxes on timber value need not be paid until the 
timber is cut and sold. Even when the mature timber is cut, there 
is every incentive to replant. There is a direct governmental bounty 
in the form of forestry commission grants in aid of planting which 
will defray a part of the cost, in addition to the substantial income tax 
benefits from listing young plantations under schedule D. 
These concessions in favor of woodland owners were granted partly 
on the ground that trees were a national inheritance which owners 
should not be penalized for preserving. Similar concessions had 
previously been granted to owners of valuable pictures and books. 
Parliament was also influenced by the view that the recurrent imposi- 
tion of death taxes would greatly aggravate the economic difficulties 
of forest management, and the concessions in respect to these taxes 
were intended to encourage good forestry. 
FRANCE 
GOVERNMENTAL AND TAX STRUCTURE 
The French Government is highly centralized and permits of little 
local variation in governmental and tax structure. The most im- 
portant taxes are those levied by the National Government, and these 
will be discussed first, following which there will be a discussion of 
local taxation. 
NATIONAL TAXATION 
The yield from national taxes and the net revenues from govern- 
ment monopolies are shown in table 127, which also indicates the 
relative importance of each principal source of income. It is evident 
that the income and related taxes contribute the largest share of the 
revenue. 
