Windfall tax is reason for Friday’s special sitting of the House

There is a special sitting of the House on Friday. It is special because the House is on recess but there is urgent business that requires the nod from parliamentarians. The Income and Business Tax Amendment Bill will go to the House for the second and third reading and thereafter through the final stages so it can become law by September. This all has to do with the imposition of a windfall tax on petroleum profits. Back in July when the world prices for oil were high and climbing, the government announced that it intended to split profits fifty-fifty with Belize Natural Energy for crude oil above ninety dollars per barrel. Based on this new windfall tax, the government projected to raise sixteen to eighteen million dollars of tax revenue between September 2008 and March 2009. But now prices for oil on the world market are falling. It stood at a hundred and ten dollars per barrel for light crude today, from a high in July of a hundred and thirty-two dollars per barrel. This will have a major impact on government’s projections and the P.M. will now obviously have to revisit his figures and find some other source for the revenue that will not be earned in order to reach his eighteen million dollar target.