522 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
regions of the United States. This burden is one of the obstacles 
that stand in the way of organizing these cut-over and second-growth 
forests and of bringing them again to the point of yielding regular 
returns. Furthermore, the property tax is very far from perfectly 
administered, and the very great inequalities brought about by faulty 
assessment are especially discouraging. The uncertainty of the 
application of this tax casts a shadow on investment in a long-range 
enterprise like forestry, where practically all of the capital is in real 
estate. In the regions where large reserves of old-growth timber still 
remain, the opportunities for immediate establishment of annual 
sustained-yield forests are the best, and the inherent disadvantages 
of the property tax the least. But even where the situation is thus 
most favorable, the uncertainty as to future treatment of growing 
forests under this system places a premium on escape by destructive 
cutting of the timber and abandonment of the land. 
The unsuitability of the American property tax to the business of 
forest growing has been recognized for a generation or more. Various 
attempts to solve the problem have been made by a considerable 
number of State legislatures. These attempts have been directed 
towards (1) tax rebates or bounties, (2) tax exemptions, or (3) tax 
exemptions plus yield taxes. None of these lines of attack has proved 
successiul. The reasons for the discouraging results of the special 
forest-tax laws include the limited or optional application of these 
laws, red tape, lack of economic incentive to use land in the way 
required, and hesitation on the part of the owner to invite the special 
attention of the assessor by classification of certain property. 
Being predominantly concerned with the property tax, the problem 
of forest taxation in the United States is chiefly a matter of State 
and local, rather than Federal, taxation. In the following discussion, 
therefore, reference to other forms of State taxation, such as the income 
tax, death taxes, and the severance tax, and to the taxes imposed by 
the Federal Government will occupy a distinctly minor place; they 
will be discussed at the close of the treatment of the property tax. 
IMPERFECT OPERATION OF THE PROPERTY TAX 
The property tax, as it is found in every-day operation in the 
United States, is a very different thing from the ideal property tax 
contemplated by the spirit of our tax legislation. In studying its 
effects upon the American forests, it is the tax as it actually operates, 
rather than the theoretical ideal, that is of chief concern. As regards 
the adverse effects of taxation, it makes little difference whether these 
are due to the inherent nature of the property tax or are the results of 
imperfect administration, contrary to the spirit of the law and in 
violation of its letter. 
When, on the other hand, the solution of the problem is sought and 
the task of suggesting reform is faced, it becomes essential to dis- 
tincuish clearly between those conditions which are the consequences 
of imperfect or illegal administration and those which would follow 
even though the law were perfectly administered. So far as faulty 
administration appears to be the culprit, it becomes necessary to 
inquire to what extent such faulty administration is remediable. 
If the adverse effects prove to be due in part to the nature of the 
property tax rather than to its faulty administration, or if it appears 
