Kaiser: More state tax hikes needed

Legislation signed by Gov. Mary Fallin last week was a good start toward meeting the state’s financial needs, but doesn’t go far enough, Tulsa oilman, banker and philanthropist George Kaiser said Tuesday.

In an interview following a presentation at Rotary Club of Oklahoma City, Kaiser said the legislation is not enough to solve the problems of Oklahoma government.

“It was enough to solve the immediate problems of K-12 education, but we have almost equally significant problems in health care, in corrections, in infrastructure and in public safety,” he said. “We needed a bill twice that size to solve those problems.

“Most of the bills proposed before — like the Step Up Oklahoma plan — were twice that size. Somehow or another, we’re going to have to find a way to supplement with some other revenue sources.”

Besides increasing the gross production tax, under HB 1010, which the governor signed last week, adds a $1-per-package cigarette tax, a 3-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline and a 6-cent-per-gallon tax on diesel.

Kaiser is CEO and owner of Kaiser-Francis Oil Co.’s parent company and is chairman and majority shareholder of BOK Financial Corp., which owns Bank of Oklahoma.

He also owns the George Kaiser Family

Foundation, which works to provide opportunities for disadvantaged children and families.

Kaiser supported the

effort to increase the state’s initial gross production tax on oil and natural gas to 5 percent from 2 percent,

“The taxes on the industry are no higher than the industry’s share of the economy,” he said. “For oil and gas,

that is their primary tax. If you’re drilling very actively, because of intangible drilling cost reductions, you don’t pay any income tax. So gross production tax is the way you support state government.”

Kaiser said he is not

overly concerned with tying a larger portion of the state’s income to gross production taxes, which are inherently variable based on production levels and commodity prices.

“We’ll have volatility, but we have volatility in a

lot of our sources of revenue,” he said.

Now that the gross production tax has been increased, Kaiser said the Legislature should look for other funding options.

“I think the gross production tax has done its

share, and there are other areas of the economy that need to do their share,” he said. “Other industries need to step up. Ideally it should be through the income tax with a higher rate at very high income levels, but we need other sources of income.”