Windfall tax goes before Senate
The Senate meets tomorrow in Belmopan and top on the agenda will be the ratification of various bills that received House approval last Friday, including the Amendment to the Income Tax and Business Tax Act through Government which hopes to collect eighteen million for budget support. In the House on Friday, the Opposition said not so, but according to the P.M., prices are expected to climb to one hundred and forty-seven dollars which means he would be on target.
Kendra Griffith
“You all concerned any at all that this will affect the bottom line of the amount of revenue you were expecting to get from that tax?”
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“Not really and if it does because prices remain low, in a sense there is a benefit to that for the rest of the economy. We have been suffering from high prices and we’ll continue to suffer as long as we export our crude. But also, while I am no expert and while even the experts seem to be a little bit confused, my sense from looking at what those who study this kind of thing are saying is that that one-fourteen, one-fifteen, was a kind of floor and that prices are not likely to go below that for much of a period of time and that they are coming back up. In fact, I just saw where Goldman Sacs is still predicting that prices will reach a hundred and forty-seven dollars before the end of the year. I hope not, even though that will mean a boost for our revenues, but what it will do on the other end is too horrible to contemplate.”
Mark Espat, P.U.P. Deputy Leader
“Every dollar at 4,400 barrels of production a day, Mr. Speaker, every U.S. dollar that we lose is $3.2 million for the year; $3.2 million in fifty-fifty split revenue. $3.2 million for every U.S. dollar that we do not collect on is what we are foregoing.”
The Senate will also deal with the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, the Customs and Excise Tax Duty Amendment, the eight point eight million dollar loan to rebuild bridges in Kendal and Mullions River and it is also expected to give its nod to the re-appointment of Edmund Zuniga as the Auditor General.
