Legislative panel questions coal tax credits

“State policy has apparently created a whole new industry of brokering and buying and selling transferable tax credits, like a big swap meet with millions being traded back and forth,” Rep. David Dank said. “Is it really good stewardship of tax dollars to have these tax credits handled this way?”

Dank, R-Oklahoma City, said he supports the coal industry, but the coal tax credits are the “poster child for just about everything that is wrong with this system.”

Job retention in the coal industry would be better addressed through the Oklahoma Quality Jobs Program, he said. The coal tax credits cost the state at least $10 million of revenue each year. State Insurance Department records show that about 30 insurance firms bought $55.9 million in coal credits from 2006 through 2009. Insurance companies buy the tax credits, usually at 80 to 90 cents on the dollar, to help pay their tax liability to the state; instead of corporate income taxes, insurance companies pay a flat, 2.25 percent tax on premiums.

Coal and wind industry representative defended the tax credits, saying they have helped make their products more competitive and have resulted in the employment of hundreds of Oklahomans.

Clay Hartley, vice president of Phoenix Coal Co. in Vinita, told members of the Task Force for the Study of State Tax Credits and Economic Incentives that none of the money from tax credits went to company executive salaries. Money was used to help pay employee salaries and to buy equipment.

Coal tax credits are earned only after the coal is produced, he said. For a coal mining company to get a tax credit, the price offered for its variety of coal has to be less than $68 a ton.

Hartley said his company sells the coal tax credits for 90 cents on the dollar. He said he bought some of his company's tax credits at the same rate, which he used to help reduce the amount he owed in personal state income taxes.