A Citizen’s Guide

The House Majority and the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee are both making ACES-related documents available on the Internet. Read the rest of this entry »

At a news conference this noon, the Senate Minority rolled out an amendment to ACES that would recommend using a fraction of the extra tax revenues to repay the Constitutional Budget Reserve, a savings account for the state. Minority Leader Sen. Gene Therriault introduced the idea by saying people have been arguing against increasing taxes because doing so would just lead to ballooning government spending. (The Alliance’s ads come to mind.) Read the rest of this entry »

While House Resources took testimony this morning from BP and ConocoPhillips, Senate Judiciary debated the merits of net and gross taxes. The talk went straight to the heart of the tax debate. Read the rest of this entry »

The tiff over potentially misleading revenue figures in the House Oil and Gas version of ACES has to do with the timing of those revenues, according to the ADN. Basically, a news release that went out Sunday said the committee version would bring in more money than Palin’s version of ACES if oil prices were above about $80 a barrel. It failed to mention that it wouldn’t do that until 2013 because of other credits allowed in the bill that weren’t allowed in Palin’s version. Adding to the confusion is the fact that the new version didn’t get a fiscal note from the Department of Revenue as is customary.

Rep. Jay Ramras, R-Fairbanks, is back in Fairbanks today, but said he’s been making the rounds to challenge Rep. Mike Doogan’s assertion from this morning.

Ramras said his fellow committee Republicans Rep. Kurt Olson of Soldotna and Rep. Ralph Samuels of Anchorage “stand by all our numbers” and added that all the issues Doogan raises came up in committee hearings.

The provision to extend tax breaks to Doyon Ltd. did not come up in hearing, though.

Rep. Mike Doogan believes the House Oil and Gas Committee didn’t get the straight scoop on the bill it passed this weekend. Read the rest of this entry »