https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Albertas-Oil-And-Gas-Company-Tax-Debt-Balloons-To-Double-The-Size.html
[links in online article]
Alberta’s Oil And Gas Company Tax Debt Balloons To Double The Size
By Julianne Geiger - Jan 20, 2020
Tough times are continuing for Alberta’s oil and gas country, with the
amount of unpaid property taxes that oil and gas companies owe to
Alberta towns has more than doubled over the course of just a year.
The total tax debt outstanding? $173 million—a 114% increase from this
time last year as the industry comes up short thanks to patches of huge
gaps between the price of West Texas Intermediate and Western Canadian
Select oil benchmarks, and production curtailments to producers in an
attempt to keep that gap in check.
And now, oil and gas producers are—whether out of a sheer inability to
pay or by design--passing on their pain to the governments they are
beholden to.
This, even as municipal tax rates on shallow gas wells and pipelines
were recently reduced by as much as 35% in an effort to “prevent further
company failures and job losses” in Alberta.
Saddled with unpaid tax invoices, Canada is also facing an exodus of oil
companies—either foreign ones who are tired of trying to make a go of it
in Canada, or native ones looking for greener pastures--the most recent
of which is Encana, who will change its name and hightail it across the
border to Denver, Colorado. Other recent runaways, either in whole or in
part, are Kinder Morgan, whose Canadian experience rose to nightmarish
proportions, ConocoPhillips, Shell, Equinor, and Marathon Oil.
The situation is so dire for the municipalities, according to the
Financial Post, that some now have a “write-down budget”, to account for
taxes due from companies who are likely to never make good on their
payments.
Last year, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that municipalities are
unsecured creditors when it comes to bankruptcy—this means that are last
to get paid in the event of default—and less likely to see the money ever.
=====================================
To subscribe, unsubscribe, turn vacation mode on or off,
or carry out other user-actions for this list, visit
https://www.freelists.org/list/keiths-list
Note: new climate change website is now in pre-launch
Visit https://www.10n10.ca/e/index.shtml