Taxation

Apparently John Hanger, former Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection under Gov. Ed Rendell, wants to tax the successful Marcellus drilling industry in his state into being far less successful. He’ll do just that if he wins his bid to become PA’s next governor. The Washington, PA Oberver-Reporter supports his nutty philosophy as well. The “looking-through-the-wrong-end-of-the-telescope” argument Hanger and other liberal Democrats try to make is that PA is leaving money on the table that could be used to fund a plethora of social programs (programs that create voters to keep Dems in office). Because PA doesn’t tax the drilling industry as much as Texas and other drilling states by using a severance tax, PA is somehow behind the Eight Ball. There’s just one problem with that argument:
Read More “Hanger, O-R Support Redistribution of Drilling Wealth in PA”

Because PA uses a flat per-well impact fee on shale drilling instead of a tax on the amount of gas that flows from the well, liberal Democrats in PA Read More “Broken Record: PA Needs Drilling Tax Instead of Impact Fee”

Sometimes the government has trouble filing paperwork for itself on time–we all know how that feels! Last year the state of Pennsylvania passed some of the most Read More “Some PA Towns Fail to File Impact Fee Paperwork with State”

In early 2012, Pennsylvania enacted the most sweeping rework of oil and gas laws in the state in decades (see Gov. Corbett Signs New Marcellus Drilling Law). Called Act 13, one of the provisions of the law is an “impact fee” collected on each horizontal shale well drilled. The fee is intended to offset the impacts of drilling in places where drilling happens, hence the name. However, in order to get enough support to pass Act 13, politics were played and 40% of the “fee” got re-allocated to non-impact uses—i.e., 40% of the fee became a tax (see PA’s New Tax on Drilling (er Sorry, Impact Fee)). Once the dust settled and the bugs were worked out of the new fee/tax by the state Public Utility Commission—the agency tasked with calculating and collecting it—the first year raised $204 million in revenue (see PA Impact Fee Raises More Revenue than Expected).

The preliminary estimates are now out for the second year, and the fee/tax for year #2 has gone down—from $204 million to $198 million, according to Gov. Tom Corbett. Why? The price of natural gas was lower in 2012 than it was in 2011, putting the fee collected into a different “bracket” (see this page for the somewhat complicated grid that determines how fees are calculated). Gov. Corbett’s comments about year #2 impact fee revenue:

Read More “PA Impact “Fee” Year 2: Revenue Goes Down, Slightly”

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, charged under Act 13 with the assessment and collection of shale drilling “impact fees,” released a new interactive website yesterday that “allows users to better examine information related to the collection and distribution of the state’s unconventional gas well Impact Fee.” MDN checked it out and is impressed. Lots of useful charts and graphs detailing who drilled the most, who paid the most, and where/how the money from impact fees has been spent.

Here’s the press release announcing the site and it’s purpose:

Read More “PA PUC Launches New Interactive Website with Impact Fee Details”