There should be a pretty darn good reason for anybody to get a tax exemption. We wonder if the owners of cabins on federal land in Oregon deserve one.

The Legislature is considering whether to extend a tax exemption to those owners, such as those with cabins along the Metolius or on Mount Hood. The state has exempted taxing the land the cabins are on since 1975 but continues to collect taxes on the value of the cabins themselves.

Cabin owners get a state exemption because they already pay the federal government an annual fee. The government turns over 25 percent of the fees to the county in which the cabins are located. The justification for the exemption goes: If the state also collected tax on the land, it would be taxing people twice.

The tax break is worth $1.4 million for about 1,600 cabins on federal land in Oregon.

Cabin owners have asked the Legislature to extend their tax break forever. Otherwise, the exemption would expire in 2012.

State Rep. Phil Barnhart, D-Eugene, and chairman of the House Revenue Committee, said that he is inclined to extend the tax break only for another six or eight years. After all, it’s not clear if the federal government will continue to return 25 percent of the fees it collects to the counties.

Cabin owners, like Bob Ervin who has a cabin near the Metolius in Jefferson County, say cabin owners are already seeing their lease rates climb as the Forest Service increases them to bring them more in line with market value. Ervin’s annual lease rate is doubling from $1,500 to $3,000. That means the federal government values the land his parcel is on at $60,000.

$60,000. Think about that. A parcel near the Metolius valued at only $60,000? We’d wager that is vastly undervalued. So when cabin owners are complaining about being taxed twice, it’s hard to be terribly sympathetic. They may not even be taxed once.

Rather than extending the exemption, we think the Legislature should be looking at a way to calculate what taxes would be owed on the market value of the federal land a cabin is on. If the federal fee the cabin owners pay covers it, then there is no need to tax them more. If not, the Legislature should end the exemption and collect the balance in taxes.