On February 11, 2015,
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf proposed to implement a severance tax on natural
gas extraction as part of his legislative proposals for an Education
Reinvestment Act. The
proposals enact a 5% severance tax on the value of the gas
and natural liquids, plus 4.7 cents per thousand cubic feet of gas extracted –
modelled after the severance tax in West Virginia.
As the Joint Hearing of
the Senate Environmental Resources & Energy Committee and Senate Finance
Committee on the proposed severance tax on natural gas was taking place on June
1st, 2015 in Harrisburg, various representatives and political
figures debated and discussed the relevance of such tax proposition.
In her testimony,
Acting Secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, Eileen McNulty
stated that “the tax will only apply to gas severed from unconventional
formations using the technology generally known as hydraulic fracturing, or
fracking”. She also mentioned that “since Pennsylvania exports a significant
amount of the natural gas it produces, an estimated 80 percent of the tax will
ultimately be paid by non-Pennsylvanians, according to the Independent Fiscal
Office”.
Written by Chloe Marie - Research Fellow
06/02/2015
No comments:
Post a Comment