By:  Staples                                                      S.B. No. 1646


A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

AN ACT

relating to the ad valorem tax appraisal of qualified timber land.            
	BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:                        
	SECTION 1.  Section 23.71(2), Tax Code, is amended to read as 
follows:       
	(2)  "Net to land" means the average net income that would 
have been earned by category of land over the preceding five years 
by a person using ordinary prudence in the management of land and 
the timbers produced on the land.  The net income for each year is 
determined by multiplying the land's potential average annual 
growth, expressed in tons cords or board feet of wood, by the mean 
Texas stumpage value, expressed in price per ton, of large pine saw 
timber, small pine saw timber, pine pulpwood, hardwood saw timber, 
hardwood pulpwood, and any other significant timber product, taking 
into consideration the three forest types and general types of 
timber as produced on the four different soil types, as determined 
by using information for the East Texas timber-growing region as a 
whole from the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Geological Survey, the 
Soil Conservation Service, the Texas Forest Service, and colleges 
and universities within this state, and by subtracting from the 
product reasonable management costs and other reasonable expenses 
directly attributable to the production of timber that a prudent 
manager of the land and timber, seeking to maximize return, would 
incur in the management of the land and timber.  The Texas Forest 
Service shall develop a cost model to determine annually the 
reasonable management costs and other expenses a prudent operator 
would incur without regard to actual expenditures by any one or more 
timber growers.  Stumpage prices shall be determined based on data 
collected for all types of timber sales, including timber deed, 
cutting contract, and gatewood sales.
	SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the 
crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an 
emergency and an imperative public necessity that the 
constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several 
days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended, 
and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its 
passage, and it is so enacted.