And the other big piece of House business taken to the House today was the Amendment to the Income and Business Tax Act. It introduces a windfall tax for petroleum to give government more revenue from oil sales when world crude prices are high. PUP Deputy Leader Mark Espat was not impressed.
Hon. Mark Espat, PUP Deputy Leader
“The point is to look at what we’re getting and to ask whether what we are going to get is what we deserve to get. I listened to the member from Pickstock who has spoken repeatedly on the issue of petroleum and on the issue of Belizeans benefiting from the oil wealth, having a fair share of the oil wealth. I want to challenge the threshold of $90 Mr. Speaker because it is on record, and I said it during my budget speech, that at the time when BNE found oil their business plan, their development plan, saw the price of oil being between $30 and $50.
Why is it that we are giving them, let us take the higher end of that spectrum and say $50. In effect what we are saying is that we are giving them $40 without a windfall, even though their business model showed a tremendous level of profitability, obviously they would not have invested if it did not up to $50. So in effect what we are giving $40 between $50 and $90 without any windfall tax. That is what happens when the threshold begins at $90.
How much in cents per dollar are we going to get from our oil revenues and I showed where the oil company promised 38 cents. With the increase in income tax we should get 49 cents per dollar but we are actually getting only 27 cents per dollar and I asked can we hear from the government, not in terms of threshold and rate but in terms of every dollar of oil that is taken from beneath the ground, what is it that the Belizean people will get, how much out of every dollar will we get.
Every dollar at 4,400 barrels of production a day Mr. Speaker, every dollar U.S. that we lose is $3.2 million for the year. $3.2 million in 50-50 split revenue. $3.2 million for every U.S. dollar that we do not collect on is what we are foregoing.”
