West Virginia timber firm seeks tax cut to compete against imported wood products

It is no secret that China is the source for many of the cheap consumer goods we buy in the America. Furniture is no different, and timber firms in West Virginia need help to compete with those products, one owner told the state legislature's Forest Management Review Commission, in a meeting covered by Tom Searls of The Charleston Gazette.

John Crites, owner of Allegheny Wood Products, said Chinese products are made to look like they are made of hardwoods, and thus they drive down the prices consumers are willing to for genuine hardwood furniture. His profits are falling — he said he has not "made a penny" in three years — and so he wants the state to drop its 4 percent severance tax on timber. “Timber is renewable,” Crites said. “It’s like a crop of corn.”

Crites said the state's tax is the highest of its kind east of the Mississippi, and that among the states bordering West Virginia, only Virginia has such a tax. Thanks to the threat of major forest fires due to the state's drought conditions, as well as the possibility of increased competition from European timber firms, the future of West Virginia's timber industry is in dire need of help, he said. (Read more)