[familyop]

Diane compared apples to oranges. It's not only "the Americans," as companies from other countries are also victims of Alberta's bait-and-switch scheme. ..."royalties," taxes--same thing in this case. And it appears that Diane is proud of what her province will probably have in common with Venezuela soon.

[familyop]

Ping! This should be interesting. Alberta's wanting to hike taxes on oil sands companies to ~ 64%, IIRC.

Info:

Diane Francis
dfrancis@nationalpost.com

[thackney]

conventional oil and gas royalties and taxes in the U.S. average 67%

~ ~ bump ~ ~

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Royalties aren’t the same as taxes. They are payments made for the resources extracted. If the land, and all sub-surface rights were sold outright, the cost wouldn’t be mistaken for a tax. Like a sale, royalties are a payment for a transfer of property rights.

That said, a deal is a deal. Existing active leaseholders should be exempted from any increase in royalties.

[Enchante]

All those “tar sands” would be worth less than zilch without mega-billion dollar investments to mine and process the stuff.

It’s ridulous to make a straight-up comparison to other locales where the cost of extraction/processing is far lower.