December 1, 2006
Source data provided by the California State Board of Equalization.
Jim Spero, Fire Economist
Fire and Resource Assessment Program
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
PO Box 944246, Sacramento, CA 94244
916-324-7185 FAX (916) 327-1180
The California Board of Equalization administers the Timber Yield Tax program, which sets the harvest value of timber and collects an in lieu tax when it is harvested. The revenue from this program is allocated to the counties where the timber was harvested).
Official statistics are found at the BOE Timber Yield Tax website, which presents tables of annual timber harvest volume and harvest value, by county, starting with the 1994 tax year. In addition, annual statewide totals are provided for tax year 1978 and later (see http://www.boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/pdf/harvyr2.pdf).
Value Added: The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Fire and Resource Assessment Program (FRAP) created a custom database (Timbertax.MDB) using annual timber harvest data files transmitted electronically from BOE each year. The purpose of this database is to provide summaries not otherwise available (e.g., by species) and to facilitate analysis of trends at various scales (e.g., by bioregion). Caveat: Summaries from Timbertax.MDB may vary from data published on the BOE website because updates to the database may not be reflected in those summaries. These differences are minor, with a statewide tax value differing by only .02 percent for 2005.
Although the BOE website provides timber tax value and volume, we provide the following charts created from Timbertax.MDB query output tables to illustrate trends over time.
The average annual volume of 1.96 million Net MBF (thousand board feet), in the period 1995-2005 was 53 percent of the 3.73 million Net MBF in the 1985-1994 annual average. Since the high in 1988, total volume declined an average of 2.18% per year from 4,668 million MBF to 1,730 MBF in 2005. Much of this fall off is due to reduced harvest on public lands, which is readily seen in Statewide Summary Chart: Volume. From the chart, it appears that volume has leveled out. Absent a change in federal policy with regard to timber harvest on public lands, harvest on private lands will probably continue to drive the overall domestic supply stream. Economics and regulatory policies will continue to drive the level of harvesting on private lands.
Tax value averaged $566.4 million over 1995-2005. This was 74 percent of the average for the preceding ten years ($768.9 million). Comparing the value and volume charts, value varied more from year to year. It is interesting to note that high harvest levels do not necessarily translate into high tax revenues. For example, the peak of $1,284 million in 1993 misses the volume peak by five years. This is not surprising: value differs substantially among species harvested.
All of the Tables and Charts from this project are contained in the following Excel document. In order to view the document you must have Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Excel Viewer installed on your computer. You download and install the free Excel Viewer from the Microsoft website.
County and Species Volume and Value (Excel document; 700kb) Note: please right-click and select "Save Target As", then open the document called BOE_timber_tax_summary.xls that is saved to your computer.
Summary Charts:
