Ayotte: Simple Tax Code Needed to Help Portsmouth Firm Grow

Following her tour of FlexEnergy at Pease International Tradeport Thursday afternoon, U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte told employees that tax code reform would go a long way toward helping them and other U.S. companies grow.

Ayotte, R-NH, said she was impressed with FlexEnergy's 250 kilowatt natural gas turbines, which allow companies at home and abroad to capture flare gas and turn it into energy as well as use less energy to generate power.

"I am very excited to learn more about what you do here," said Ayotte.

She said one of the issues she supports is simplifying the federal tax code to make it easier for U.S. companies like FlexEnergy to sell their technology to more customers. She believes FlexEnergy's natural gas turbines "have unlimited potential" when one considers the natural gas energy located in states like Pennsylvania and North Dakota as well as overseas in countries like Russia and the Middle East.

Ayotte said with a simple tax code, that would include lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, better regulatory policy, and reducing the $17 trillion federal deficit, Washington could do a great deal to help companies grow, add more jobs and make the U.S. the number one place for manufacturing in the world again.

By lowing the corporate tax rate by 10 percent, Ayotte said companies that currently have a majority of their capital overseas would be able to bring more of that capital back home. Right now Ayotte said the U.S. is not the easiest place to start a business and she would like to change that.

But as challenging as the current economic climate may be, Ayotte learned that the Portsmouth firm is growing. She said company officials told her they plan to add another 20 years, which would boost their total employees to 120.

Joe Skusa, FlexEnergy's applications engineer, said the firm sold 20- to 25 gas turbine units in 2012 and is on pace to do the same volume of sales this year. He said each unit sells for an average price of $400,000. If they sell 25 units this year, that would translate in $10 million of sales.