ABSTRACT
Forest tax research has focused on four major categories of taxes applied to the use and management of forest land, namely local government taxes, federal and state income taxes, death taxes, and special severance taxes. Several states have repealed the unmodified property tax on forests and have applied local property tax rates to forest productivity values based on capitalized income from a hypothetical sustained yield forest. Forest tax policy is typically altered with the intent of achieving a new goal or of achieving an existing goal more efficiently. In rejecting the unmodified property tax on forests, taxing authorities have abandoned the traditional equity guide of taxing the same percent of market value for all classes of property. Analyses of the theoretical impacts of any proposed or existing forest tax are highly sensitive to assumptions about tax shifting. Market values of standing timber and land are required for death tax and property tax purposes.
