Energy Environmental Blog

Ohio: New Industry Severance Tax?

Written by Greg Russell | Mar 10, 2012 4:55:09 PM

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that the Kasich Administration may be contemplating new taxes on the energy industry in Ohio to fund tax breaks for others:  "Sources tell The Dispatch that the Kasich administration, in its negotiations with oil and gas producers to revise the state’s severance tax to include natural-gas liquids, has discussed using the cash to implement an across-the-board income-tax cut."

Reminds of the Golden Goose fable.  The President of Ohio's Oil and Gas Association had a good reply:  "'There’s an old adage in life: If you want less of something, then you tax it,' said Jerry James, president of the Oil and Gas Association and president of Artex Oil Co. in Marietta."

[Update:  For more, see here - "Oil and natural-gas drillers in Ohio (STOOH1) would pay a severance tax as high as 4 percent to fund income- tax cuts under a plan Governor John Kasich will unveil next week, according to an administration proposal obtained by Bloomberg News."(Bloomberg).]