The state of Alaska has never changed its mining taxes.<\/p>\n
To find the last time Alaskan miners had to open their tax books, you have to look back before statehood, before even the Alaska Constitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t been changed since 1955,\u201d Deputy Revenue Commissioner Jerry Burnett told the Senate Resources Committee in a Wednesday hearing. \u201cIt predates statehood.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the state\u2019s deficit rising closer to $4 billion per year with every day that oil remains below $30 per barrel, Gov. Bill Walker has proposed raising a wide variety of consumption taxes, including the tax on the state\u2019s mines. None of the consumption taxes will close the gap on their own, but combined they will make a difference, Walker has said.<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s mining proposal would raise the tax rate for the largest mines (those with a net income of $100,000 or greater) from 7 percent to 9 percent. The 3\u00bd-year tax exemption for new mines would be eliminated, and there would be a fee for tax licenses, something that would affect mines of all sizes.<\/p>\n
According to state documents, the existing mining tax collected $38.6 million in 2015. The increase would collect another $6 million per year.<\/p>\n
Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage and chairwoman of the resources committee, asked whether it makes sense to raise taxes on mines, even as mineral prices have fallen, forcing the temporary closure of the Nixon Fork Mine near McGrath.<\/p>\n
Burnett responded that the tax is on net income, not gross income, so \u201cas the economic factors go down, it will reduce the tax.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly an additional tax \u2026 would accelerate those economic factors,\u201d Giessel said in turn.<\/p>\n
Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, said Alaska \u201cvirtually has no mining tax for all practical purposes,\u201d and the state\u2019s tax structure isn\u2019t preventing business from opening.<\/p>\n
He said he feels transportation and permitting issues are the biggest obstacles for many of the state\u2019s mines.<\/p>\n
Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna, and other members of the committee said they were concerned about the elimination of the new-mine tax exemption.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope we\u2019re not disincentivizing exploration,\u201d Micciche said.<\/p>\n
The Senate Resources Committee is scheduled to meet again at 3:30 p.m. Monday to discuss an increase in the state\u2019s fisheries taxes. The mining tax bill, SB 137, had not been scheduled for another hearing as of Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The state of Alaska has never changed its mining taxes. To find the last time Alaskan miners had to open their tax books, you have to look back before statehood, before even the Alaska Constitution. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t been changed since 1955,\u201d Deputy Revenue Commissioner Jerry Burnett told the Senate Resources Committee in a Wednesday hearing. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8646","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\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8646"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}