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No “severance tax,” unless

A “severance tax” on deep shale gas would be on top of, in addition to, the Capital Stock and Franchise Tax, an astronomical Corporate Net Income Tax, and the Act 13 Impact Fee that is collected from wells and distributed to hosting counties.

Adding an additional tax, no matter what you call it, is stupid. It’s bad public policy, it’s bad government. Tax-and-spend officials always like spending other people’s money. That’s the worst sort of government.

A severance tax could make sense if one or all of the other taxes and fees were eliminated. Then there’d be balance. That’s good public policy, good government.

If you want higher prices in your own house for many food items, grill gas, heating gas, etc. and you want to open up your own wallet, take out more money than you need to pay, and just donate it, OK. But don’t demand that everyone else also dig deeper into their wallets for their money to cover your bad ideas. The severance tax will be passed on to the public with higher costs for lots of things.

Just leave it alone.

 

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