Group launches $4M ad buy against oil and gas tax hike

The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) on Thursday launched a $4 million, multimedia ad campaign combating proposed tax increases on the country's oil and gas industry.

The proposals seek to repeal the "dual capacity" tax credit used by domestic companies to offset foreign-sourced income and deny oil and gas producers the Section 199 manufacturing deduction for keeping most of their operations within the U.S.

The ad warns that repealing these provisions will disadvantage domestic companies by increasing their tax bill while giving foreign-based companies, like BP, a competitive upper hand.

"So what you have here is a situation, where, ironically, some members of Congress are saying, 'Let's react to the BP oil spill by taking away some of these tax provisions,' " NTU Executive Vice President Pete Sepp told reporters. "Well, what they're doing is handing the equivalent of a competitive advantage to BP and some of the other foreign-owned firms, and that just doesn't seem to be logical tax policy."

Sepp cautions that the tax increases will have a dampening effect on domestic job creation.

"Senators need to understand that there's no such thing as a painless tax hike, especially on energy," he said in prepared remarks.

The ad is slated to run for 10 days on networks like CNN and Fox, as well as on assorted radio talk shows.