Wyoming lawmakers consider tax increases to ease deficits

CHEYENNE (AP) — A legislative committee’s task of finding new sources of revenue for Wyoming’s state government, which depends heavily on the boom-and-bust prone energy industry, includes looking at new taxes or increasing existing taxes, a co-chairman of the panel said.

The Legislature’s Joint Revenue Interim Committee was directed by legislative leadership to identify ways to raise new revenue in to offset the deficits in state government operations and funding for public schools.

State tax collections have declined because of the downturn in Wyoming’s important oil, coal and gas sectors. The state education budget alone has a projected $1.8 billion shortfall over the next five years.

“Basically, the directive is to leave no stone unturned,” committee co-chairman Sen. Ray Peterson, R-Cowley, told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle in a story published Wednesday.

Peterson said he is not a fan of imposing taxes on Wyoming residents and businesses. But with about 70 percent of Wyoming’s revenue derived from taxing minerals, he said the state must consider broadening its tax base.

“Up to 70 percent of our tax base is generated from minerals, which means around 30 percent with the private citizens that pay through sales tax, property tax and other fees,” Peterson said. “Because of that ratio, Wyoming has always had this boom-bust cycle we always contend with.”

Ample tax revenue from the energy sector allowed Wyoming to spend more than $15,600 per person for services in the state’s fiscal year that started July 1, 2014, and ended June 30, 2015 — the second most in the nation, according to a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation study. Prices for oil, gas and coal have dropped significantly since then.

Convincing Wyoming’s residents and businesses to pay more when they have not been asked to for generations will be a difficult task, Rep. Michael Madden, R-Buffalo, the committee’s co-chairman, said.

“If we have any obligation to educate the public, probably our biggest challenge is to remind these third- and fourth-generation citizens that just because we’ve lived for a few decades with this boom and bust — and boom always happening — doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again,” Madden said.

Possibilities for raising revenue include: Imposing a gross receipts tax, reviewing fees imposed by state and local agencies, increasing tobacco and alcohol taxes and evaluating how local government’s raise revenue.

The committee earlier this month voted to advance consideration of a gross receipts tax on the gross revenues of companies.

Sen. Affie Ellis, R-Cheyenne, said she met no voters who supported tax increases during her 2016 election campaign.

“We don’t want to impose taxes that are going to drive businesses and families out of our state,” Ellis said.

The committee’s report is due in November.