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The timber and forest industry have long been crucial to the economic and environmental health of Oregon. As a key land use and production of the state, the forest industry has been subject to several taxation system changes.

One of the most rudimentary and earliest taxations of private timberland was the property tax; however, it posed an issue when compared to the income generated through private forests. By the 1920s, Oregon had a major problem with tax delinquency among forest landowners with many forest landowners simply abandoning their ownerships due to the high property tax rates. The Oregon Legislature then chose to try and encourage the ownership and reforestation of recently harvested lands by creating the optional Forest Fee and Yield Tax Law in 1929. Under this system owners could opt into the system and were able to exempt all their timber from property taxes. Instead they were levied an annual fee on a per acre of ownership rate with a yield tax placed on the value of forest products once they were harvested.

Although this offered owners a different option for forest taxation, many did not choose to opt into this Fee and Yield Tax and the rate of tax delinquency continued to increase into the 1940s and stayed relatively high into the 1950s. In order to address this situation and develop a long-term solution, 33 forest tax bills were introduced to the Oregon Legislature between 1921 and 1959.

One of the important issues tackled in these bills was the lack of uniformity in timber assessment procedures between the counties who were responsible for levying the property taxes. In 1955 the state legislature directed the then State Tax Commission to assist the counties by developing a consistent timber inventory and valuation methodology. By 1961 the Tax Commission was the sole party responsible for forestland valuation for taxation purposes.

The Tax Commission conducted a number of studies to try and calculate a reasonable valuation of old growth timber in each county. However, there was so much variation that their plan was never adopted. In 1961 the legislature enacted new forest taxes for all lands except those in the Forest Fee and Yield Tax system. Under this new tax system landowners were subject to either an Ad Valorem Tax, Small Tract Tax, or the Fee and Yield Tax. The Ad Valorem Tax operated very similar to a property tax, with a clause that all forest land could be taxed at a lower rate to encourage forestland ownership. In addition to this, the timber was then taxed, with no annual tax on young timber, unless harvested, and older timber was taxed at 30 percent of its immediate harvest value. For the Small Tract Tax the land and timber valuation was combined into a flat true cash value per acre based on site class. Only those owning less that 1000 acres were able to opt into this program.

This new taxation system called for renewed efforts to gather information on property value and timber assets in order to implement this system. It was through these changes in the legislature that the Tax Commission took considerable time in gathering valuation data across many Oregon counties. These efforts to document and map their findings and valuation information comprise the maps and related documents in the Oregon Timber Tax Maps.