Louisiana bills promise tax break for oil companies

BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First News)  — The House Ways and Means Committee passed a package of bills that would reduce the amount of severance taxes an oil company pays while extracting crude oil in Louisiana.

House Bill 600, 518, and 495 were authored by Representative Brett Geymann (R-Lake Charles). Geymann told the committee that the bills were designed to energize the state’s oil and gas industry.

Currently, oil companies in the state are charged 12.5% of the oil’s value coming from stripper oil wells or horizontal wells.

“House Bill 600 is the oil piece, and it does one thing: it reduces the severance tax from 12.5% to 6.5%, and that’s all the bill does. And that is to get us more competitive with our neighbors. I believe Mississippi and Arkansas are at 5% and 6%, and Texas is at 4.5%. We have the highest severance tax in the nation,” said Representative Geymann.

Representative Jacob Landry (R-Erath) sat with Geymann in support of the legislation, telling members, “I think getting the severance tax lower on oil will bring some much-needed prosperity back to the coast.”

The bills must still pass the House and Senate.