HB 72 yay or nay (sale, 2014, credit)

[ak-rev]

So if this was up to a public vote would you vote yes or no for the oil tax credit?

[ak-rev]

The bill is being sold as a way to increase extraction of alaskan oil by offering tax incentives that are projected cost the state 2 billion dollars a year. The thought is that increased extraction will lead to increased demand for laborers, job growth.

My issue with the bill is that oil companies already make massive profits from alaskan oil, we already have incentives in place to encourage exploration, and there is no guarantee that production will increase. What will likely happen is production will continue to follow the trend it has while robbing alaskans of tax revenue to boost the profits of the oil companies.

I would like to know what other alaskans think of this bill.

[Moose Whisperer]

So if I own a clothing store, I will only run a Christmas sale if I get upfront, guarantees in writing from my customers that they will buy my merchandise?

Sounds like a perfect recipe for going out of business to me...

[ak-rev]

The thing is Alaska is not about to go out of business and neither is big oil so why are we going to offer a discount if they are going to pump the oil anyway?

[Moose Whisperer]

Originally Posted by ak-rev

The thing is Alaska is not about to go out of business

Yes, it is.

Back in 2007, in order to justify ACES the Brainiacs in Palin's Department of Revenue forecasted that Oil throughput in TAPS wouldn't decline below 600,000 Barrels per Day until sometime after 2022. We are already there now.

Last week, the Alaska Legislative Finance Division forecast that at current levels of spending and revenue, the State of Alaska will face a $920 Million budget deficit for Fiscal Year 2014.

Finally, the University of Alaska's Institute of Social and Economic Reasearch (ISER) predicted that the State's own Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 10 year plan will leave the State effectively bankrupt, burning through it's entire Constitutional and Statutory cash reserves by 2023.

The nice thing about numbers is that they don't lie. We can go on listening to all of this blather and spin about greedy oil companies, giveaways to big business, it's our oil, blah, blah, blah, but the math is undeniable. The current tax structure has set this state on the road to finacial ruin. If it is not it is changed, Alaska will go belly up unless all of us are ready for massive State income and Property taxes. Period.