Negative Tax Impacts in 2021 (Alaska)

Hey IMPLAN Team - I hope you're doing well! I have a methodological question I want to run by you.

I'm in the midst of generating construction impacts in an Alaskan Borough. So as to not get too in the weeds with my inputs and their associated caveats, I'm going to provide a simplified example.

I ran an industry output event for industry 55 - Construction of new commercial structures, including farm structures. The value for the event is $10 million. The associated State & Local (S&L) tax impacts are negative for the 2021 data year (the latest data available at the time of my analysis). The direct impacts are negative, while the indirect and induced impacts are positive; however, the negative direct impacts are larger than the sum of the indirect and induced impacts, which results in an overall negative S&L tax impact.

If I run the same event described above using the 2019 data year, the S&L tax impacts are positive. There are no negative directs for any of the sub-local regional details.

This leads to my question. Is it reasonable (or methodologically sound) to report to my client the economic impacts using 2021 economic data and the associated tax impacts using 2019 economic data? If so, I will certainly caveat this distinction in my write-up.

Ultimately, I think it might be difficult to explain the negative tax impacts to my client. My hunch is that PPP loans might be generating the negative tax impacts, at least in part, in 2021 (this is speculation on my part; I don't have a clear sense of what could be generating negative tax impacts in a construction industry). In an ideal world, I'd wait until the 2022 economic data are released and then re-run my analysis to see if the negative tax impacts persist or diminish, but I don't have time to wait until the data's official release in December 2023.

I'd very much appreciate any insights or thoughts you can offer me on this line of inquiry!

Thank you so much,

Ryan

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  • Official comment

    Hello Ryan!

    This is something that we began to experience with the release of the 2020 IMPLAN Annual Data Year that carried into the 2021 Data Year. The reasons you are seeing these types of Results are detailed in our support article - Taxes: How the Pandemic Ruined My Tax Results. Even though I cannot see your specific Results, I would assume that these negative tax Results are stemming from negative TOPI values (for the Industry, Region, or both). In that case, I would suggest you utilize the 2019 distribution of taxes in the Region to breakout the TOPI value given in the 2021 analysis, as these percentages are only regionally specific. This will require you to calculate the percentage distribution utilizing the Results of an analysis done in 2019 (in excel) and then to apply the Direct, Indirect, and Induced TOPI values from the 2021 analysis to derive the 2021 TOPI taxes. 

     

    Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any additional questions on this approach.

     

    Best,

    Michael Nealy  

  • Hi Michael, can you provide a bit more specific instructions on how to complete the adjustment you describe? We are still seeing this problem at the local level with the 2022 data, given the 1-2 year lag in local tax information. Thanks. 

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