The American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) and 100 supporting US ports and other organizations, sent a letter to House and Senate leadership, urging them to enact a comprehensive solution to fix the HMT (Harbor Maintenance Tax) for good.
The HMT is paid by shippers to maintain US harbors. While ports are critically important for US competitiveness, full use of this tax has yet to be achieved, nor is it guaranteed in the future, AAPA noted, adding that there are also problems related to tax fairness that must be fixed.
In this regard, the letter to Congressional leadership highlights a proposed solution offered by AAPA that would provide both full use of annual Harbor Maintenance Tax revenues, as well as address tax fairness issues.
The proposed solution calls for full spending of prior year Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund revenues, according to a framework that ports agreed would be fair and equitable.
According to the letter, AAPA’s proposed solution “makes maintenance the highest priority, provides protections to address small port and regional port needs, provides increasing equity to large HMT donors and acknowledges Congress’ priority to provide support to energy transfer ports.”
America’s ports need legislation that will finally fix the HMT for good. Adopting a comprehensive HMT proposal into upcoming federal legislation would be good for our nation, good for our nation’s ports, and is a top infrastructure priority for AAPA,
…said AAPA Government Relations Vice President Susan Monteverde.