Lawmakers Try Making Life Worse For Americans As Gas Prices Wallop Pocketbooks

RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP via Getty Images

As Americans grapple with painful prices at the pump amidst a global oil crisis, some Alaskan lawmakers seem intent on making that pain even worse. The 49th state is debating a tax increase on certain oil and gas companies, a measure that will make energy even more expensive and chill investment.

The state Senate shoehorned this tax hike via a Democrat-sponsored amendment into a House bill that covers a royalty agreement with Marathon Petroleum Corporation. The amendment would impose a top marginal tax rate of more than 9% on privately held oil companies, as opposed to publicly traded ones like ExxonMobil or Marathon. (RELATED: DAVID BLACKMON: When It Comes To Energy Dependence On Other Countries, Americans Have An Easy Choice)

It’s a messy change to Alaska’s tax system that would impose significant costs on privately held energy producers, called S corps, which have strict limits on the number of owners or shareholders. They’re often much smaller than their publicly traded brothers, the C corps. The tax hike would impose the higher taxes of C corps onto certain S corps in Alaska.

Of course, the state Senate didn’t bother vetting the knock-on........

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