The U.S. Congress is poised to update the decades-old tax code. Both the House and Senate have now passed comprehensive tax reform bills that can grow the economy, spur new investment and create jobs. Thank you to everyone who took the time to send a note to your members of Congress – your actions resulted in more than 1,500 letters encouraging representatives to pass these important pieces of legislation. The House and Senate will now work to resolve the differences between the two bills and pass a single piece of legislation before the end of the year.
We believe that the final version of the legislation will benefit the U.S. economy by:
- Cutting the corporate tax rate. The corporate tax rate would be decreased from 35 percent to 20 percent. Such a reduction would make companies more competitive globally and would eliminate the current incentive for some U.S. companies to incorporate overseas for tax purposes.
- Encouraging domestic business investment. Both bills preserve an important cost recovery that allows independent oil and gas producers to deduct 100 percent of our intangible drilling costs in the year incurred. Additionally, the bill would allow for first-year expensing of capital investments, excluding land and structures, for five years.
- Boosting U.S. global competitiveness. This bill levels the global playing field by shifting the U.S. from the current worldwide tax system to a territorial tax system, like that adopted by a majority of industrialized countries. The worldwide system encourages companies to keep money overseas. Under a territorial system, U.S. companies would not pay U.S. tax on the earnings of their foreign subsidiaries, encouraging companies to bring that money back for investment here.
We remain engaged with members of both the House and Senate to ensure passage of a bill that will help put natural gas and oil producers in a better financial position to expand our investments in support of our global business strategy.
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