Alaska's fiscal puzzle

Please speak out against HB 111 – oil & gas tax bill

House Resources Committee will resume public testimony at 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 6, on
HB 111. This bill would increase oil taxes again and make fundamental changes to SB 21.

Testimony will be limited to two minutes.

Tell them HB 111 goes too far and raises the basic oil tax rate to the detriment of investment in Alaska. While some adjustment to the tax credits may be appropriate, we must quit threatening our resource industries with increased taxes. We need to attract investment in Alaska, not chase it away.

Our oil industry has yet to regain its health. It has shed thousands of jobs and many in it are looking Outside to survive. Last week, Jim Udelhoven, CEO of Udelhoven Operating Companies, testified that his workforce has decreased from 800 employees to 299 in the last couple of years. “We just came through a severe recession. Oil prices have now stabilized at the national level, and at the state level we can go forwards with a little bit of optimism if we oppose HB 111. I started out in 1970 with one employee. I would sure hate to go back to one employee again.”

 

POINTS to consider for your testimony:

  • Alaska cannot increase oil production by increasing taxes. Alaska cannot tax away the industry’s incentive to invest and still expect to have a sustainable economy.
  • While it is tempting to collect every dollar possible from the oil industry through increased taxation, doing so makes Alaska projects less competitive with those elsewhere and robs the companies of the investment capital they require to expand existing fields and discover new ones. In the long run, increasing taxes on the industry will do more harm to Alaska’s economy. Conversely, more investment means more production, more revenue for the state and more jobs for Alaskans.
  • Alaska cannot control the price of oil, but it can control what kind of business climate we create here – one that encourages continued investment and more oil for TAPS.
  • Oil tax reform in 2013 made Alaska more competitive and a more attractive place to invest. Oil companies have responded with over $5 billion in new projects. Alaska saw no production decline in 2014, a slight dip in 2015, followed by the first production uptick in 14 years in 2016.
  • The new 2017 oil tax policy proposal, HB 111, represents the seventh major tax change in the last 12 years. Imposing significant tax increases and eliminating access to critical incentives will do nothing to increase production. It creates more harm to Alaska’s largest industry and the state’s economy as a whole.
 

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Need the facts - check out our new fact sheet   AOGA: Senate Bill 21 incentivized billions in Alaska oilfield investments, more oil in the Trans Alaska Pipeline
 

P.O. Box 220884, Anchorage, AK 99522 | 907.569.7070 | keepalaskacompetitive.com
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