Alaska House passes corporate income tax bill for digital-era businesses

The Alaska House voted Wednesday to accept Senate changes to a bill updating how certain businesses apportion taxable income to Alaska, specifically focused on digital businesses.

House Bill 280 passed concurrence 28-11, according to the House floor transcript. The official legislative record lists the bill as having House concurrence in Senate amendments.

Rep. Calvin Schrage said the final version is a tax modernization bill. It updates Alaska's corporate income tax structure for businesses that do not operate only from a physical location.

Schrage said the House had previously stripped out a higher tax aimed at highly digitized out-of-state businesses. The Senate Finance Committee added clarifying language directing the Department of Revenue to use Multistate Tax Compact language when writing regulations for financial institutions.

Rep. Zack Fields supported concurrence. He said the bill would let Alaska collect revenue that otherwise could be collected by other states such as California or New York.

Rep. Jeremy Bynum said he supported the bill after asking the administration whether it created a new tax and whether it was needed to modernize the state tax system.

The effective date clause was adopted without objection.