FOREST: TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES 601 
In Oregon the initial size of the State timber-tax fund needed 
might be so great as to preclude its establishment by a State tax levy 
only. In this case the fund might be established by borrowings 
extending over a period of 5 or 6 years. The manner of establishing 
and maintaining the fund would have to be considered and decided 
upon in the case of each individual State, but the cost must be borne 
eventually by all taxpayers. 
Immediately after the adoption of this plan, the receipts of the 
State timber-tax fund from timber operators and others would be 
expected to increase from year to year, since there would be an 
annual increase in the amount of deferred timber taxes payable when 
timber was cut or sold. There might be years in which such receipts 
would be sufficient or more than sufficient, to meet the payments, 
which would be the amount of the total property tax levy on timber, 
together with interest and sinking fund requirements if any part of 
the State timber-tax fund had been borrowed. In such years no 
State-wide tax would have to be levied in support of the timber-tax 
fund. Any excess of these receipts over payments should be accumu- 
lated as a reserve to eliminate or reduce State-wide taxes for the 
fund in future years when the receipts might again fail to balance 
payments. The cost of the plan to the taxpayers of the State at 
large would be reduced by wider application of sound forest manage- 
ment through decreasing the deferment of income from timber. It 
would be automatically eliminated if annual sustained-yield forestry 
became universal. : 
ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS 
Certain administrative details would enhance the workability of this 
plan of forest taxation. These are similar to those mentioned in con- 
nection with the adjusted property tax. 
Every taxpayer having forest property should be invited to furnish 
the assessor with a sworn statement of the stumpage value of the 
timber or other forest products harvested or sold and all other income 
from the property, together with a list of descriptions or parcels 
from which removal of the merchantable timber had been completed 
during the year, or else a sworn statement that no income was received. 
This statement should cover 1 year ending at the time of assessment 
and should be filed at any time after the assessment date within a 
prescribed period sufificiently limited in length to allow time for com- 
putation of the timber taxes. As a penalty for failure to furnish the 
assessor with a statement of income, the current timber tax would 
not be paid from the State timber-tax fund but would be due and 
payable to the local collector at the same time and in the same manner 
as the land tax, and, in addition, all deferred timber taxes charged 
against the taxpayer would be declared delinquent and would be 
henceforth subject to the same interest charges and penalties as delin- 
quent land taxes; provided that if the taxpayer should, within a 
limited time, file an income statement covering the year or years 
during which he failed to file, the payments on account of timber 
taxes from the State timber tax fund would again be resumed and no 
further interest and penalties would accrue to deferred timber taxes, 
and the property would be removed from the delinquency rolls. In 
farm-woodlot regions where very small forest yields are received in 
varying amounts but quite regularly, the farmer might not consider 
