{"id":3530,"date":"2017-02-19T11:29:01","date_gmt":"2017-02-19T19:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/my-turn-lets-not-act-like-victims-of-new-state-taxes\/"},"modified":"2017-02-19T11:29:01","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T19:29:01","slug":"my-turn-lets-not-act-like-victims-of-new-state-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/opinion\/my-turn-lets-not-act-like-victims-of-new-state-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"My Turn: Let\u2019s not act like victims of new state taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI guarantee everybody in Alaska will find something about this plan they don\u2019t particularly care for,\u201d Gov. Bill Walker said when he unveiled his proposal to tackle the state\u2019s fiscal crisis. Now, 14 months later, with the Legislature poised to pass some new tax measures, those voices are making themselves heard. Instead of harmony in the chorus of complaints though, everyone is fending for themselves.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the oil industry. \u201cWe are looking for stability and durability,\u201d said Kara Moriarty, president and CEO of the Alaska Oil &Gas Association (AOGA), in response to House Bill 111. If passed, the bill would establish a minimum tax that cannot be reduced by credits and raises the oil industry\u2019s production tax from 4 to 5 percent.<\/p>\n

Complaining about oil tax stability seems reasonable given how often it\u2019s changed over the last decade. But the real instability for the industry is the roller coaster that crude oil prices began to ride 35 years ago. In just over six months in 1973, it jumped 250 percent before leveling off around $55 per barrel. Then in June 1980, it rose to $115 before racing downhill to under $30 per barrel.<\/p>\n

The most recent precipitous dive is what put Alaska on the fiscal cliff. It started not long after industry backed oil tax reform was signed into law. Despite claims that it would fill the pipeline, investments and jobs on the North Slope paralleled the fall in oil prices. And still, Conoco Philips earned $233 million in Alaska last year, while globally ExxonMobil realized almost $8 billion in profits.<\/p>\n

The lesson here is obvious. HB 111 won\u2019t chase big oil out of the state because the primary driver of industry investments is the price of oil, not tax policy.<\/p>\n

On the consumer side of oil is Alaska\u2019s motor fuel tax. Right now it\u2019s the lowest in the nation and four times lower than the national average. Gov. Walker has proposed tripling it<\/a> and putting the money raised into a fund dedicated to road, airport and marine highway projects. It\u2019s a user tax similar to the Federal Highway Trust Fund where the national gas tax is deposited. Even a taxaphobic like Senate President Pete Kelly, R-Fairbanks, can support that idea.<\/p>\n

But Alaska Airlines, Delta Airlines and UPS are all complaining they\u2019ll be subsidizing work at smaller airports which they don\u2019t use. It\u2019s a reasonable argument. But then again, every tax supports some kind of subsidy on the other side. And like the oil industry, the volatility of oil prices impacts their operations much more than a fixed fuel tax of less than 20 cents per gallon.<\/p>\n

This tax would also hit us all the fuel pump. And Rep. Colleen Sullivan-Leonard, R-Wasilla, thinks her constituents will be disproportionately burdened because so many have jobs in Anchorage. For a vehicle that gets 20 miles per gallon, that 90-mile round trip translates to about $15 per month in new taxes, or two to three times more than the average driver.<\/p>\n

The flip side of her argument is that by driving more, Mat-Su commuters cause more wear and tear of the road system than the average driver. So if it\u2019s a user tax to fund road maintenance, they should pay more than most of us.<\/p>\n

Either way, it\u2019ll be a lot easier to pay 16 cents per gallon more in taxes then when a gallon of gas was selling at more than $4 per gallon. And it\u2019s not a big enough tax increase to cause anyone to move down south.<\/p>\n

There are other reasons some Alaskans might be pushed in that direction. According to the Alaska Trust Company (ATC), attorneys, accountants, managers and their assistances could lose their jobs if the state imposes an income tax on all trusts administered here. Most of those belong to non-Alaskan residents. If that tax shelter is eliminated, ATC warns, \u201cthose trusts will leave the state and virtually no tax will be collected. It will cause individuals who work here to lose their jobs and they too will leave, meaning Alaska will not be able to impose an income tax on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just a sampling of objections that legislators are hearing. Spreading the pain gives everyone an equal opportunity to be a victim. It may be a popular role to play right now, but it\u2019s not at all flattering.<\/p>\n

A better approach is to be thankful for the decades in which we\u2019ve been the lowest taxed people in the country. And even if that long run is coming to end, it doesn\u2019t change the fact that Alaska is the most remarkable place in America to live.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI guarantee everybody in Alaska will find something about this plan they don\u2019t particularly care for,\u201d Gov. Bill Walker said when he unveiled his proposal to tackle the state\u2019s fiscal crisis. Now, 14 months later, with the Legislature poised to pass some new tax measures, those voices are making themselves heard. Instead of harmony in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-3530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3530"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}