For decades, corporate timber companies benefited from tax cuts that cut local county budgets across the state. Residents also suffered when they were forced to make up for the losses to maintain schools and other county programs as a result of those corporate tax cuts.

Taxpayers have increasingly been asked to make up the difference and for some counties and residents in the state that meant higher property taxes, fees or cuts to existing programs and services.

What we do know is that Oregon timber companies previously paid a severance tax on the value of the trees they logged. And these timber barons have not paid their fair share because lawmakers passed a series of lopsided tax cuts that resulted in lowering the funding provided to schools and local governments.

What can and should be done? House Bill 2379 before the Oregon Legislature is key to restoring some of your tax dollars. The bill imposes a severance tax on owners of timber at time of harvest at 5% of value of the timber and directs revenue from the severance tax into the Emergency Wildfire Fund.

Let’s face it, if you think about the demographics in counties — they’ve been hit hard by logging, the people are relatively strapped, and so when the local option comes up for large timber companies and says, “We’re going to increase your property taxes, we’re going to pass this measure, do you voluntarily support it?” They say “no.”

Just look at a fire services proposal to merge the city of Union’s fire department and the Union Rural Fire Department, and you kind of get a picture for how tax forgiveness works.

Randy Knop

Union