How Rural Oregon Got Left Behind

30 years ago, Oregon gave big corporate logging companies massive tax breaks. Money that once helped pay for education, public safety, firefighting and health services has vanished.

Logging companies used to pay taxes to the counties where they cut trees. This money was used to pay for necessary public services like schools and fire trucks. Today, there is lots of logging but rural counties are facing hardships because they don’t get enough money to pay for essential services.

What would fair taxes be?

  • A small woodland logger holds a chainsaw

    No increase for the little guy

    The proposed tax would not apply to small woodland owners with less than 5,000 acres, the loggers who do the cutting, the truckers who haul the wood, the operators of the machinery, or the foresters who are the backbone of Oregon’s industry.

  • Big corporate timber companies pay their fair share, like the rest of us

    Large corporations have consolidated ownership of Oregon’s forests. Up until the 1990s they paid a fair tax on the timber they harvest to support rural Oregon. A simple solution exists - a 6% tax on the value of the timber cut from Oregon’s forests.

  • Happy firefighters standing in front of a fire truck

    Restore support for first responders, libraries, roads

    Right now, small towns across Oregon struggle to fund essential services - fire, police, libraries. The funding crisis impacts the quality of life across Oregon. Restoring fair tax for big corporations would help fund basic services.

Politicians all but erased fair timber taxes on large corporate owners.

Rural Oregon has changed dramatically since the 1980s. In the 90s, Republicans and Democrats gave massive tax breaks to large private logging companies. Today Oregon homeowners pay 100 times what the big corporate and Wall Street-controlled logging companies pay.

 

If the tax on corporate logging companies were the same today as the 1980s, rural Oregon would have extra $100 million per year.

That would be money for better schools, rural health care, roads, expanding broadband networks, law enforcement, firefighters and equipment-- instead all that money went into the pockets of rich executives and corporate shareholders.

Read the Proposal Made by Coastal Residents

Should Wall Street companies really pay 100 times less property tax per acre than homeowners?

Falls City, Oregon supported the timber industry for decades. Today, the town suffers from tax breaks given to large logging corporations:

“But the jobs and services have dried up, and the town is going broke. The library closed two years ago. And as many as half of the families in Falls City live on weekly food deliveries from the Mountain Gospel Fellowship.”

-OPB: Big money bought Oregon's forests, small timber communities are paying the price

 

Corporate Takeover of Oregon’s Forests, Structured to Avoid Taxation.

An investigation by OPB, The Oregonian and Pro Publica confirmed that 4.4 million acres in Western Oregon are in industrial ownership. 62% of these lands are owned in complex corporate entities designed to avoid taxation (e.g. Real Estate Investment Trust “REIT”). Coastal residents have combed through the data and produced maps that show how these large corporate owners dominate the forested landscape in Clatsop, Tillamook, Curry, Douglas, Coos, Lincoln and Lane Counties.

Restoring timber taxes puts rural Oregon first

More resources

Oregon towns need timber taxes to come back