Taxation

Pennsylvania State Sen. Jim Brewster (Democrat from Allegheny & Westomoreland counties) wants to be known as the politician that killed Marcellus drilling in the Keystone State. That’s the only thing we can conclude from his efforts to introduce (yet again) a bill that would tax Marcellus drilling into idleness. Brewster’s plan calls for KEEPING the impact fee and ADDING a severance tax to it–but deducting impact fee payments from the severance tax. Complicated cockamamie? Yeah. Brewster proudly calls his bill/plan “Extraction for Education” because it will give all of the severance portion raised (5% or whatever portion it works out after impact fees) to teachers’ unions. We call it “Excrement for Education”…
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Two accountants walk into a bar….Wait! No. That’s a story for another blog site. Reboot: The Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA) has just released a poll of their members. One of the questions asked: How should PA close the state budget gap? The top three choices from the bean counters: (1) privatize liquor stores (69%); (2) implement a severance tax on shale drilling (67%); and (3) legalize pot smoking (27%). There are 22,000 members of PICPA, so if 22% of them (almost 5,000) want to light up a joint, it looks like more than a few in PA believe like John Hanger, Gov.-elect Wolf’s new Secretary of Planning and Policy. Before Hanger dropped out of the governor’s race, he famously endorsed legalizing pot smoking. Maybe PA will become the new Colorado–full of stoners? But we digress. Does anyone else find it suspicious that the people who would have to file reams of tax forms on a severance tax (generating lots of billable hours) are in favor of such a tax? Can anyone say, conflict of interest?…
Read More “PA Accountants Love Marcellus Severance Tax (and Smoking Pot)”

Pennsylvania Gov.-elect Tom Wolf continues to get the Ed Rendell band back together again–the same bunch that ran PA into the financial ditch under Rendell. First he appointed Katie McGinty, former Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) under Rendell, as his chief of staff. Now Wolf has appointed another Rendell Sec. of DEP, John Hanger, as his Secretary of Planning and Policy. Must be Wolf has a thing for DEP Secretaries. You may recall Hanger ran against Wolf (and against McGinty) in the Democrat primary for governor this year, but dropped out in March (see Pass One Last Joint for John Hanger). Hanger can’t wait to cook up high severance taxes on drillers. Why is it Democrats always salivate when they think about taking other people’s money?…
Read More “PA Gov-Elect Wolf Appoints John Hanger Secretary of High Taxes”

Obama was sworn to uphold the Constitution when he took office. It is the essence of our country–the rule of law by which we live. Obama trashes the Constitution with every executive order he issues, creating new laws (something delegated to the legislative branch under the Constitution) and even treading into the judicial side of things with an out-of-control Attorney General, Eric Holder. Obama’s infamous example of appointing himself judge, jury and executioner hasn’t been wasted on leftists elsewhere, including Pennsylvania. Democrats met in Harrisburg last week to lick their electoral wounds. The meeting was organized by the radically left PennFuture (further illustrating just how far off the left side of the chart Democrats have gone). At the meeting, Dem bigwigs said PA’s Gov.-elect, Tom Wolf, should follow Obama’s example and thumb his nose at the Republican legislature and just make up his own laws, especially when it comes to the environment and gas drilling…
Read More “PA Dems Want Gov-Elect Wolf to Follow Obama’s Lawless Example”

Gee, a politician who lied to get elected? Say it ain’t so! Ah, but it is. And the politician who lied is none other than Gov.-elect Tom Wolf. He said slapping a severance tax on Marcellus drillers would raise $1 billion or more that could then be given to schools (in any other context this would be called theft–holding up one citizen to turn the money over to another citizen). Wolf knowingly used erroneous numbers pumped out by the anti-drilling Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (far-left, partisan Democrat group). They said a 5% tax would haul in 1 billion big ones. The truth? At best, such a tax may haul in half that–still leaving a $500 million hole in the budget. And that’s if drillers don’t stop drilling and leave the state because they’re being bled to death with a corporate income tax on top of a severance tax (which states like TX, OK and LA don’t have). Now it’s time for mainstream media to try and cover Wolf’s lie by pretending it was a mathematics error…
Read More “PA Gov-Elect Tom Wolf’s Severance Tax Lie Exposed”

Payback time for the teachers’ unions. We now know how the Democrats plan to mount a campaign to dump the impact fee and raise taxes on drillers and landowners with a severance tax, and give half of the money to “education” (i.e. teachers unions). We have their game plan courtesy top PA Democrat strategist Tony May, who wrote about it in the Harrisburg Patriot-News…
Read More “PA Dem Strategist Lays Out Game Plan for Selling Severance Tax”

It’s payback time for newly elected Pennsylvania Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf. He took radical California environmentalist Tom Steyer’s money, millions of it, to get elected (see CA Anti-Driller Tom Steyer Purchasing Tom Wolf PA Governorship). Now that Wolf has been elected, the bill has come due. Time to pay the pied piper. The price? Get a Marcellus-killing severance tax passed. Right on cue that’s just what Wolf is doing–his master’s bidding…
Read More “Time for Gov-Elect Wolf to Pay the Piper – Severance Tax High on List”