Stories tagged with "tax policy"

All that's wrong with 'common wisdom' in one article

Posted by Jerome a Paris on June 2, 2008 - 5:30pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: gordon brown, north sea, original, tax policy, united kingdom [list all tags]

This article from The Telegraph is a wonderful example of pundit cluelessness and or wanton incompetence, and I'm going to rip it to shreds in detail below.



Gordon Brown landed North Sea oil in choppy water

The Treasury is enjoying a windfall as oil soars but taxation policy may have knock-on effects

The rest of us may have been too busy partying like it was 1999, but on the eve of the millennium Britain was quietly, unwittingly, selling off the family silver on the cheap.

Gordon Brown's choice of that year to start selling off Britain's gold reserves with the precious metal's price close to an unprecedented low is well documented. What is less well known is that 1999 marked the peak for North Sea oil production and - by an unfortunate twist of fate - the very nadir of the oil price.

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Fuel duty and the effect of oil prices on the UK economy

Posted by Chris Vernon on December 9, 2006 - 5:12pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Economics/Finance
Tags: oil, tax policy, united kingdom [list all tags]

UK Chancellor Gordon Brown has published his 274 page Pre-Budget Report (.pdf) today (06/12/06). This is the first policy statement from the treasury since the Stern review's presentation of the economic case for addressing climate change. Stern concluded that to stabilise climate change at manageable levels, emissions would need to stabilise in the next 20 years and fall between 1% and 3% after that. This would cost 1% of GDP, considerably less than the impact of unchecked climate change.

How would Brown respond? Insufficiently, it would appear.

The only "green taxes" were to add 1.25p per litre to fuel duty from midnight and increase air passenger duty from £5 to £10 for most flights. Interestingly Brown rejected demands to re-link petrol prices to inflation.


Gordon Brown, UK Chancellor
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The Round-Up: November 27th 2006

Posted by Stoneleigh on November 27, 2006 - 12:26pm in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Site news
Tags: coal bed methane, income trusts, nuclear waste, oil, oil sands, refineries, royalty trusts, tax policy, wind power [list all tags]

Oil and gas trusts to lose up to $2-billion in value: report

Canadian oil and gas trusts will lose up to $2-billion in net present value over the life of their assets because of the federal government's tax changes to trusts, a Scottish consultancy said in a report released Friday.

Anger, relief over tax move

Ottawa's decision to start taxing income trusts has opened up a sharp fault line in the executive suites of Corporate Canada.

The ruling has emerged as a divisive issue, pitting those who run trusts against those in non-trust businesses, according to a new survey of top executives.

The quarterly survey of 175 chief executive officers, chief financial officers and chief operating officers shows a dramatic split among those who back Ottawa's move and those who dislike it. The quarterly C-Suite survey was conducted by the Gandalf Group for Report on Business and ROB-TV.

About 58 per cent of those surveyed support or strongly support the decision, while 40 per cent oppose or strongly oppose it.


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The Round-Up: November 24th 2006

Posted by Stoneleigh on November 24, 2006 - 10:34am in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Site news
Tags: hydro, mackenzie valley pipeline, mergers, oil sands, tax policy, wind power [list all tags]

Wind energy capacity doubled this year, now enough for 406,000 homes

Canada invested more than $1 billion in wind energy production in 2006, bringing the country's total capacity for the renewable power to 1,341 megawatts, enough to power 406,000 homes.

A record 657 megawatts of wind energy capacity has been installed in the past year, nearly triple the last high of 240 megawatts in 2005, according to the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA).

Wind energy capacity has nearly doubled since the beginning of the year, when there were 684 megawatts in place.


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Income Trusts and the Canadian Energy Sector

Posted by Stoneleigh on November 21, 2006 - 11:26am in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: cost of capital, flow-though entities, income trusts, oil production, oil sands, oil supply, private equity buyouts, revenues, royalty trusts, tax policy [list all tags]

Finance Minster Jim Flaherty recently gave the income trust sector an unwelcome surprise. Prime Minister Harper had previously promised to "stop the Liberal attack on retirement savings and preserve income trusts by not imposing any new taxes on them", but the government underestimated the momentum towards trust conversion and was facing a very significant loss of tax revenue.

Not satisfied with merely preventing new trust conversions, Flaherty decided to impose retroactive tax measures on existing trusts. Many of these existing trusts happen to underpin conventional oil and gas production in Alberta - in fact the trust structure was initially developed to facilitate production from mature assets in the oilpatch. The proposed tax changes could therefore have a significant effect on energy production and the Alberta economy specifically. Departing Alberta Premier Ralph Klein welcomed the tax measure.

Alberta was hurt by the trust tax loophole. We were losing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

However, he and the rest of Alberta may well be far less pleased once the implications of this experiment in retroactive tax policy come home to roost.

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