Alaska's fiscal puzzle

Tell legislators to send new oil tax bill to the shredder

Politics over policy. Once again, the House Majority refuses to negotiate in a meaningful way with the Senate Majority and Governor Walker on ending cashable credits and creating tax deductions that will KEEP Alaska competitive in the global oil industry.

Yesterday the House Resources Committee, chaired by Reps. Geran Tarr and Andy Josephson, released their “compromise” version of House Bill 111. To put it mildly, this bill is a step backwards, and could reverse the progress made in Alaska’s oil patch over the past few years, deepening the current recession.

The legislation proposed by the House Resource Committee erases the ability to deduct legitimate expenses that allow averaging the bad years with the good years. This represents a major tax increase on the oil industry at a very challenging time. We need to refill the pipeline, keep Alaskans working and pay for essential state services like education and public safety, not continue to threaten investors with increased taxes that discourage investment.

Here are the lowlights of the bill:

  • Eliminates the ability to deduct losses from the bad years from earnings from the good years. Income/loss averaging is the basis of almost every income tax in the world.

  • House leadership says they will come back after a legislative working group on oil taxation has met to replace credits with something. These continued threats only discourage investment.

The proposed legislation continues to hold hostage issues that both parties agree on, namely elimination of cash credits and passage of a capital budget, to meet the House leadership’s objective of increasing taxes on the oil industry and imposing an income tax on individual Alaskans. It’s time to pass the Governor’s compromise by eliminating the cash credits – and pass a capital budget.

It’s time to prioritize good policy over politics.

KEEP Alaska Competitive urges all Alaskans to contact their legislators as soon as possible and express their opposition to the new House version of HB 111 (version X). Let him or her know you support a version of the bill that grows the economy and puts Alaskans to work.

 

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