A Very/ M[erry

Violations

Price Commission charges that it has found evidence of wide-spread illegal or unorthodox pricing policies in lumber and plywood and that it has initiated extensive efiorts to enforce its rules.

Both the Price Commission and the Internal Revenue Service are investigating, with the IRS currently checking on 200 firms and tuning up for full scale audits of 116 more companies.

The industry has cited the numerous inequities in the controlso mentioning log exports, profit limitations, import of Canadian lumber, rising log costs and others. It has also noted that the vast majority of firms at all levels have worked hard and made sacrifices to be in compliance with PC rules.

Titigaiion

Despite a few kind words for the industry spoken very softly, the Price Commission seems determined to twist the forest industry tail in public and bring about compliance, regardless of inequities.

"We are not inclined to seek administrative remedies any more," avers Carpenter, "We are more likely to go straight to litigation." Noting their feeling that many of the violations are willful, he concludes, "The level of noncompliance is higher than in other industries. It's not looalized. There seems to be some greed throughout the system."

Recent PC rulings lowered from $50 million to $5 million in sales the level at which firms in lumber and wood products had to report tleir prices, sale+, profits, costs and markups to the commission. In virtually all other industries. the Tier II level for reporting remains at $50 million in sales.

The first filing of these reports apparently set ofi the commission. They claim that of about 1,000 smaller firms newly required to file, hundreds have failed to do so and that in"99Vo of those reporting, we have had to return the reports for additional information." Not yet checked for profit margin violations, the forms have apparently shown a 30/o rute of either price increases not justified by higher costs or markup violations.