Oil industry may be looking at higher taxes

JUNEAU -- The past 12 months were high times for oil companies in Alaska. They made more than $5 billion -- after expenses -- from North Slope crude, according to a new state estimate.


It might be torment for consumers at the gas pump. But the long run of stratospheric oil prices, over $55 a barrel recently, is great for the companies' bottom line. Those big profits are also stirring up the public debate over raising oil taxes.

The state government is expected to pull in $3.04 billion in oil taxes and royalties for the fiscal year that ends Thursday. That's more oil money than the state has collected in a year since 1991, Department of Revenue analysts said. The trans-Alaska oil pipeline was running almost twice as fully then as it is today, and there was a spike in prices as a result of the Persian Gulf War.

http://www.adn.com/money/industries/oil/story/6652459p-6539208c.html

more..."The state worked up the estimate of the oil companies' net revenue at the request of Les Gara, a Democratic state representative from downtown Anchorage. The state does not normally offer a public estimate of oil company revenues.

Gara has tried for the past two years to change the oil tax system.

"We own the oil," Gara said. "The state should act like a member of the private sector and charge what it is worth."

"We own the oil" and the Alaska Permanent Fund must be replenished so that the citizens of that great state get their share of their oil sales.

It should be so in all of our lands from sea to shining sea. We own the resources that god has put there. Those that profit from our god given resources should also pay those of us down dwelling here in the lower 48.

And then the alarm clock rang. Sigh, it is only a dream.

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