Taxpayers will subsidise the clean-up costs of oil spills in the Great Australian Bight under the terms of the controversial Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.
Treasury officials have confirmed that clean-up costs for oil spills from exploration wells would be classified as “exploration expenditure” under the PRRT regime, meaning they would be tax deductible for oil companies and could be held over and “uplifted” into future years at an annual rate of 17.5%.
It means Australian taxpayers would be forced to subsidise the clean-up of any oil spill in the pristine Great Australian Bight, paid for via a loss of future taxpayer revenue.
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