Tax Brief

Billions in Energy Tax Subsidies Left on the Books

Many energy industries will benefit from what the final tax bill doesn’t include.

Budget & Tax, Energy & Natural Resources, | Our Take

Dec 19, 2017 | 1 min read | Print Article

The tax bill being brought up for vote in the House and Senate will add more than $1 trillion to the national debt in the next ten years. Overall, the energy sector comes out as a winner, keeping many lucrative tax breaks in place and ignoring new revenue raisers like a carbon tax.

Here’s a list of some tax preferences for energy industries NOT cut by the conference tax bill, and what the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) has estimated they cost under current tax rules.

The above represent provisions that were never on the table. In addition, there were some that were affected by either the House or Senate drafts of the tax bill, but were ultimately left untouched in the final bill. (See our separate analysis of these provisions HERE.) Below are estimates of what these provisions cost under current tax rules.

Energy Tax Subsidies Dropped from Final Bill
Provision	10-yr. Cost ($ millions)
Credit for production of electricity from renewable sources (aka, Renewables PTC) **	40,000
Credit for investment in renewable energy property (aka, Renewables ITC) **	20,000
Ability to form MLPs for oil, gas, & coal companies	9,900
Credit for electric drive vehicles	8,800
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) credit	371
Oil and gas marginal wells credit	–
TOTAL	79,071