Again not to be argumentative, but I can't resist one comment from your article posted here by Kay Cashman (who I pay a lot of attention to):
Referring to a slide benchmarking Alaska tax rates against other fiscal regimes, he said what PFC has said is at $100 per barrel ranges, government take under ACES is in the mid-70 percent, [emphasis mine] “and that is very, very high by OECD standards, second only to Norway and certainly in particular much higher than the levels of government take we see elsewhere in the Lower 48 which are the places in particular Alaska at the moment is competing with for investment capital.”
Too bad Mayer doesn't break that down. You and I both know ACES is only one component of that assuming the 70% is even true, which I doubt. Mayer certainly wanted to leave the impression that it was only because of ACES, which is disingenuous. Another example of why Alaskans aren't getting an honest discussion of the problems up there.
Correction, Kristen Nelson not Kay Cashman. Same thing. They’re partners in reporting this stuff.
You and I both know ACES is only one component of that assuming the 70% is even true, which I doubt.
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I agree it is only one component. That number also includes Royalties, Corporate Petroleum Income Tax, Petroleum Property Tax, and Federal Taxes.
That was one of the problem with Alaska taxes is there are too many levels of special taxes on the petroleum industry, not paid by other industries. I don’t consider Royalties in that category, those make sense in selling minerals.
In my opinion, the focus on ACES is all these other taxes already existed, when ACES was put in place adding to the burden. When it was sold to the public in Alaska, it was advertised as only changing 22.5% to 25%. The media and supporting politicians gave little talk to the steep climbing rate once oil was above $30; in my opinion, living in Alaska at the time, it was dishonest in the way it was sold to the population. So, ACES was the last one added, it should be the one scaled back.