Drilling Industry Paid More Than $1 Billion in State Taxes Since 2006

At the direction of Gov. Tom Corbett, the Department of Revenue this week released an analysis showing that companies engaged in and related to natural gas drilling activities in Pennsylvania have paid more than $1.1 billion in state taxes since 2006.
Those taxes came on top of the billions of dollars of infrastructure investments, royalty payments and permit fees paid by the industry.
The Revenue Department’s analysis, which breaks out tax payments from oil and gas companies and their affiliates through April 2011, indicates that 857 of these companies have already paid $238.4 million in capital stock/foreign franchise tax, corporate net income tax, sales/use tax and employer withholding to the state in 2011.
These figures from the first quarter of this year already exceed by nearly $20 million the total tax payments made in all of 2010.
The department’s analysis also identified $214.2 million in personal income taxes paid since 2006 attributable to Marcellus Shale lease payments to individuals, royalty income and sales of assets.
A comprehensive analysis of personal income tax paid on Marcellus Shale business profits is not feasible because the department cannot conclusively determine what profits from Marcellus Shale partnerships, S corporations and LLCs were passed through to individuals as opposed to C corporations, which are taxed at 3.07 percent and 9.99 percent, respectively.
However, the department can determine that these oil and gas companies, and their affiliates, include 1,096 pass-through businesses. These businesses reported $675.4 million in 2008 income.
These numbers will be updated monthly.

The PA Budget and Policy Center released a study of Marcellus tax revenue last week said 85 percent of the 783 natural gas drilling companies paid nothing in corporate net income tax in 2008.