Wind Tax Revenue Questions Continue

Lawmakers and lobbyists won't miss a beat in continuing to hammer out tax law for the growing wind industry in Wyoming. An interim committee meeting next week will consider how to rework a  bill that failed this last legislative session. The bill would have made changes the wind industry would like. This week Natrona County Commissioners met with a lobbyist for the Wyoming Wind Producers Coalition. Commissioner Rob Hendry came away from that meeting leaning toward the coalition's ideas.

"One of the proposals in that bill was that they would do away with the sales tax.  Right now it goes on in 2012 for all the wind towers. That's a lot of money up front, but if you did away with the sales tax and made it three dollars on a generation tax- in the long run, over 20 years, you might be better off."

Failed  House bill 191 would have done those two things; upped the production tax and done away with the sales tax that kicks in next year.

Hendry knows there's lot of revenue available if it stays in place.  At least 1.5 million per tower, he figures, at 5 percent.

Whatever the solution, he says, there is also the  question of who gets what percentage of the income. Hendry, as a commissioner, is hoping lawmakers recognize the impact on roads and infrastructure in the counties when they decide how to divvy that tax revenue up.