BTW, how does a “real free marketer” justify a “windfall profits” tax on oil companies in Alaska?
How does a real free marketer justify letting oil companies sever Alaska’s oil wealth for cheaper than market prices.
A truly free market would sell the land under which that oil is deposited to the highest bidder and then make sure the oil companies paid the full market value of every cost associated with oil production including ALL the externalities.
[BTW, how does a “real free marketer” justify a “windfall profits” tax on oil companies in Alaska?]
Asked & Answered. You’re making a category error. Palin’s ACES legislation does not qualify as a winfall profits tax. It’s a production tax that rides independent of and prior to profits per se. See post #191 here for detailed discussion and several very good supporting links:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2779951/posts?page=191#191
Sarah Palin didn't.
BTW, how does a “real free marketer” justify a “windfall profits” tax on oil companies in Alaska?
If you don’t support Palin thats your perogative,but could you please save on the ignorant or stupid comments,PS you dont come across as to bright if your to lazy or ignorant to reasearch the issue which you wish to comment on.
BTW, how does a “real free marketer” justify a “windfall profits” tax on oil companies in Alaska?
If you don’t support Palin thats your perogative,but could you please save on the ignorant or stupid comments,PS you dont come across as to bright if your to lazy or ignorant to reasearch the issue which you wish to comment on.
Wait a minute!
I thought you didn’t have to “re-evaluate the fact” that you like her until this thread came out, with the information that Nader likes her? (As you say in post # 7.)
But in fact, you haven’t liked her all along because of the other issue?
It is not a windfall tax, as championed by liberals to capture even greater revenue during periods of larger profits. Instead, it is a tax that is levied on production and the loss of a resource.
State severance taxes charged on production of oil and gas and minerals are common throughout the United States. Also sometimes called “production taxes,” they’re charged by the state from beneath whose land valuable resources are extracted, and they’re designed not to punish the energy companies, but to recompense the state for its loss of a non-replaceable resource — one that must be quantified and taxed upon removal, if it is ever to be taxed at all. Severance taxes are therefore based on production from within the state, not on profits earned by the company extracting that production — even though the production may be measured in, and the tax assessed upon, the market value or gross revenues (as measured in dollars) received for that production, rather than an “in kind” delivery to the state in barrels or cubic feet as such. See, e.g., Tex. Tax Code §§ 201.051 & 202.051
Alaska’s previous version of its severance tax had been negotiated behind closed doors by defeated Gov. Frank Murkowski, a few top state legislators (some of whom are now in prison for corruption), and energy lobbyists. One of the campaign planks upon which Gov. Palin ran for office was replacing that tax with one negotiated in the open with full transparency; and the resulting tax was, indeed, slightly more favorable to the State of Alaska.
Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share,” or ACES), while it did produce a slight increase in the top tax rate (from 22.5% to 25%)—even as it also “hedges against low prices in the future by ensuring that oil companies exposed to commodity price swings don’t face a crushing tax burden when commodity prices fall”—wasn’t anything like a “windfall profits tax.” It was, rather, an effort to clean up Alaskan politics by writing the tax code on the oil companies out in the open, where everyone could see it, in order to replace the tax law that the oil companies had pretty much written to suit themselves in a back room away from public scrutiny. It was about replacing crony capitalism with a more ethical way of doing business.