Saving Seafood

Alaska working on flatfish tax fix to capture foregone revenue

December 9, 2015 — A state tax rate glitch let groundfish trawlers off the hook for more than $10 million of fishery taxes in the last half decade, and there’s no concrete fix just yet.

The fishery resource landing tax taxes groundfish based on ex-vessel price. Processors turn flatfish caught as bycatch into low-value fishmeal, so the only known ex-vessel price for certain flatfish species is artificially low. Nine species have this price uncertainty, but most flatfish volume comes from yellowfin sole and Atka mackerel.

By only having an ex-vessel value based on the price paid for bycatch turned into fishmeal, the state has no idea what the ex-vessel value is for the direct flatfish fishery that has annual harvests measured in hundreds of thousands of metric tons.

According to state research estimates, the state has lost out on $1.8 million to $2.5 million per year, or more than $10 million over the last five years. Researchers haven’t yet looked back further due to paucity of data, but the fishery resource landing tax has existed since 1994.

Lori Swanson, assistant executive director of groundfish trawler group Groundfish Forum, did not say whether the industry knew it had been underpaying since the tax’s birth.

“They pay what the state tells them to pay,” she said.

The state doesn’t really know

The Department of Revenue, however, hasn’t been calculating a realistic view of fleet’s tax rate, and is only starting to rework the system. The state began this tax specifically for factory trawlers and catcher-processors, but overlooked a systemic flaw from the beginning.

“It’s actually two things,” said Kurt Iverson, a research analyst with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. “First, a very small amount of the total harvest is in the (Commercial Operator’s Annual Report), and on top of that, that harvest is not representative of a true ex-vessel valuation because it’s coming in as bycatch.”

Anna Kim, the Department of Revenue chief of revenue operations, said she can’t speculate why the issue went for so long without being noticed. Iverson said the problem isn’t intentional. The Department of Revenue simply attached the tax to shoreside sales, which don’t happen for some species.

Read the full story at Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

Alaska Salmon season might miss forecast

August 10, 2015 — The state’s salmon harvest topped 160 million fish over the weekend, but it’s questionable whether the catch will meet preseason expectations.

In Southeast, catches are running well below the forecast set earlier this year. As of Sunday, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reported 22.6 million salmon caught in Southeast, including only 15 million pink salmon. Heading into the season, the spot forecast called for 58 million pink salmon, and forecasters were 80 percent confident that the harvest would be between 37 million and 79 million fish.

Instead, figures now seem to indicate a harvest below the bottom end of that range.

In an average year, Southeast’s salmon harvest peaks in what ADFG calls “statistical week 32,” or between Aug. 2-8. The five-year average harvest for that week is 11.1 million salmon, mostly pinks, but recent years have been higher. Last year, 12.1 million fish were caught during that period.

Read the full story from Juneau Empire

ALASKA: Fish and Game hiring too many environmentalists, says Alaska state senator

August 6, 2015 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Sam Cotten is defending the recent hire of a former employee of the environmental group Oceana following a complaint from a Republican state senator that Cotten’s department is picking new employees from the “injunction industry” — a sarcastic reference to lawsuits filed by advocacy organizations.

Anchorage Sen. Cathy Giessel sent a letter to Cotten last week referring to a “steady stream of personnel changes” at Fish and Game, with replacements coming “overwhelmingly from the conservation advocacy sector.”

“It is my sincere hope that the arrival of individuals who have dedicated a part of their lives in an antagonistic relationship with the state of Alaska is not a reflection of a new philosophy in policy on the part of the department,” said the letter from Giessel, who chairs the Senate’s resources committee and is a mining- and oil-industry booster.

Cotten said in a phone interview Wednesday that he’d been hearing concerns about his department’s recent hiring of Chris Krenz, a former senior scientist at Oceana who worked on the group’s campaign opposing Shell’s oil drilling program in the Arctic.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News