Tax - preferential rates, exemptions

This memo evaluates three tax subsidies to nuclear power contained in the American Power Act (APA): 5-year accelerated depreciation for reactors; a 10% investment tax credit; and an expansion of a production tax credit for nuclear. The draft Act was floated by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) in May 2010. Subsidy costs were evaluated using prototype AP1000 and Areva EPR reactor characteristics, and a range of values for cost of capital.

(Report in Brief). (Full report can be emailed to you). Report of the Technical Committee of Business Taxation for the Canadian Department of Finance. Committee mandate to review taxes paid by Canadian business and recommend ways of improving the business tax system. Useful background on issues of tax system integration and neutrality, critical elements in understanding federal subsidies to energy.

Department of Finance. Advocates establishment of a common statutory rate of corporate income tax for all sectors, including consistent treatment of costs, both across resource projects and between the resource sector and other sectors of the economy to supposedly promote more efficient development of Canada’s natural resource base. Most of the proposed changes involve tax reductions to reduce the tax bite on resource projects relative to competitors such as the United States.

Tellus Institute. This primer describes the theory and options for Environmental Tax Shifting (ETS) in Massachusetts. By shifting the state tax base from income, savings, or labor to use of resources, pollution, and sprawl, revenue raising would discourage unattractive activities rather than work and savings.

Robert S. McIntyre and T.D. Coo Nyugen, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Detailed assessments of the actual taxes paid by major US corporations and corporate sectors at the state level. Tax breaks often allow particular sectors, including energy, to pay an effective tax rate that is much lower than their statutory rate. Companion studies to various federal tax assessments done by CTJ and the tax breaks that allow them to dramatically reduce their federal tax liabilities.