Update: The author has changed the article, without noting so. Original article here. The new article suffers from many the same problems in that it fails to note that the majority of the money involved is through government efforts to lower prices in developing countries.  As the IEA notes ending this support will shift "the burden of high prices from government budgets to individual consumers…" and that “…low-income households are likely to be disproportionately affected by the removal…”

We see a lot of false arguments about “subsidies” for the oil and natural gas industry, but this tweet caught us by surprise:

First, as we have to explain every time, the oil and gas industries don’t get tax credits (which reduce taxes dollar for dollar) or grants from the government. They get t... more »

In the video below API tax policy advisor Brian Johnson explains why rhetoric about oil and natural gas companies benefiting from taxpayer subsidies is just that, rhetoric.

Creating much of the confusion is the way terms like “subsidies” and “deductions” get used interchangeably. Does the oil and natural gas industry benefit from taxpayer subsidies? “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Johnson says. Take a look:

Oil and natural gas opponents think they’ve got some ammunition in a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll from nearly a year ago showing that 74 percent of Americans support “Eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries.”

One problem with the February 2011 poll: There are no targeted tax credits in the Internal Revenue Code currently being used by the oil and natural gas industry.

The inconvenient truth for industry opponents is that contrary to what some politicians and pundits have said oil and natural gas companies currently aren’t receiving any unique tax credits or deductions.

Since its inception, the U.S. tax code has let corporate taxpayers recover costs and be taxed only on net income. These cost-recovery mechanisms shouldn’t be confused with tax credits or “subsidie... more »