Butcher: Oil tax reform aims for “sweet spot”
State Commissioner of Revenue Bryan Butcher made a pitch on behalf of oil tax reform in Sitka on Wednesday. He told the Sitka Chamber of Commerce that House Bill 110 was not perfect, but it was an attempt to find a "sweet spot" that would provide tax revenues, but not discourage oil developement. He argued that lawmakers in 2007 could not have anticipated that prices would double in so short a time. The state has been salting away surpluses of roughly $2-billion a year since ACES became law, but Butcher said that the high taxes were stifling development on the North Slope, and that oil companies were investing more elsewhere.
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