Fishermen, lawmakers weigh in on proposed fish tax increase

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Fishing industry and lawmakers on Thursday puzzled over the origins of a proposed one percent tax increase in fisheries business taxes and fishery resource landing taxes.

In its current form, the bill increases by one percent three different tax rates within the Fisheries Business Tax structure, a tax on direct marketers and the tax on floating processors.

The director of the department's Tax Division, Ken Alper, said he could provide the committee with the model used to determine the proposed tax rate, but he said there had not been a formal study.

To get to that point, we talked a few ideas around the circle and relatively quickly settled on this one, so that there isn't very much paper track record to provide to the committee.

Alper referenced a University of Alaska Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research study that found that most of the benefits from the commercial fishing industry go to local government, while the state spends more regulating the industry than it takes in revenue from the industry.