Publication 216, The First 100 Years
The Timber Yield Tax
The method of taxing timber was changed in 1976 with the r enactment of the Timber Yield Tax.124 The Z’berg-Warren-Keene-Collier Forest Taxation Reform Act (AB 1258) made the Board of Equalization not only the administrator of the Timber Yield Tax program, but also the appointing power for a Timber Advisory Committee with which the Board consults before the timber harvest value schedules are adopted.
The Timber Yield Tax, which replaced the ad valorem taxes on standing timber, imposed a yield tax on all timber harvested within the state. The tax was initiated at a rate of six-and-one-half percent, effective on and after April 1, 1977. Beginning in the same 1977-78 fiscal year, the Board was also to value all “privately owned land and land acquired for state forest purposes which is primarily devoted to and used for growing and harvesting timber . . .“This land” will be zoned for a minimum ten-year period as timberland preserve and will be valued on the basis of its use for growing and harvesting timber.” 125
Under the law, the Board adjusts the tax rate on harvested timber annually in December for the ensuing calendar year. The previous year’s tax rate is adjusted to the nearest one-tenth of one percent in the same proportion as the change in the average general property tax rate in the seventeen rate-adjustment counties designated in the Timber Yield Tax Law.
124 Chapter 176, Statutes of 1976.
125 Report of the State Board of Equalization, 1975-76, p. 34.