The following is part of a series of real-time responses to the empty rhetoric made by Secretary Tom Wolf during tonight’s Pennsylvania Chamber Gubernatorial debate with Governor Tom Corbett.

SEVERANCE/EXTRACTION TAX

CLAIM:

Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry does not pay a severance/extraction tax

RESPONSE:

According to Secretary Tom Wolf himself, Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry does pay an extraction tax.

“Well the severance tax is simply a tax based on the market value of gas, typically at the well head. Right now, we actually have a severance tax. It’s called the impact fee.” –Tom Wolf, September 8, 2014

Read more HERE.

The local impact fee has provided over $630 million directly to local communities since signed into law by Governor Corbett.

Additionally, the natural gas industry has paid over $2 billion in state taxes since 2008.

Wolf is using an extraction tax as the silver bullet to all of our spending problems and misrepresenting it as a tax that will provide an endless supply of money. However, when you do the math on all of Wolf’s increased spending proposals, his plan is nearly $500 million in debt.

So what does Wolf do instead of cut some of the outrageous spending proposals in his Fresh Start platform? He nonchalantly doubles his estimate for how much money a severance tax would raise.

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