Taxes

A slowdown in oil and gas activity in Oklahoma between late 2014 and late 2016 created a $1.5 billion, or 15.4%, loss in total state tax revenue, according to a report released last month by the State Chamber of Oklahoma.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday in the final budget address of his first term again called on a joint session of the General Assembly “to do the right thing” and pass a proposal to implement a severance tax on natural gas production.

With comprehensive tax reform winning passage in the Republican-controlled Senate on Saturday, lawmakers in the House, where the GOP also holds sway, are preparing to hold conference committee talks to iron out differences, including on energy issues, between bills passed in the House and Senate.

Idaho’s effective tax rate on oil and natural gas is less than half the average in eight producing states spread around the West, according to a report released Thursday by the state Department of Lands’ Oil/Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC).

The Mexican government is taxing Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) to death, and a recently adopted support package to prop up Pemex is not enough, Fitch Ratings said in a note last week.

West Virginia tax collections continued falling through the first three months of the fiscal year in a trend that state officials again attributed to weak commodity prices, which have negatively impacted the oil and natural gas industry.

Ohio’s local collection of the taxes producers pay on their oil and natural gas reserves has changed slightly in a move that could mean increased burdens for some producers that contest the value of their assets and the taxes they must pay on them.

Marshall County, WV, has denied Statoil ASA’s request that a roughly $353,000 property tax overpayment be refunded. Statoil said the overpayment resulted from a clerical error when it used production estimates instead of actual volumes to calculate its 2015 payment. State law does permit refunds for such clerical errors, but the West Virginia Tax Department told county commissioners that the company’s miscalculation was a matter of negligence. The commissioners voted 2-1 last month to deny the refund.

The outlook for the merger of Energy Transfer Equity LP (ETE) and The Williams Companies Inc. dimmed further this week as favorable tax treatment of ETE units and Williams shares was cast into doubt in an ETE regulatory filing.