- 15 - PRT, and for payments of tax that should have been paid by foreign contractors providing services to the taxpayer in the North Sea. Under PRT, operating losses from any period are carried back or carried forward without limit to income associated with the field. Additional prominent features of PRT, as originally enacted and as amended over the years, may be described generally as follows: (1) As an incentive to development of marginal North Sea fields, an “oil allowance” or exemption from PRT is allowed for each field in an amount equivalent to the value of 500,000 metric tons of oil per 6-month period up to a total of 10 million metric tons over the life of the field;4 (2) A tariff receipts allowance is allowed, which for each 6-month chargeable period exempts from PRT tariff receipts attributable to transportation of up to 250,000 metric tons (i.e., up to 1,875,000 barrels) of oil from each field); (3) Various nonfield-specific expenses are deductible against income from a field (e.g., exploration, appraisal, and research expenses); (4) As a limit on the amount of PRT that would be owed, a “safeguard” provision limits the amount of PRT payable in each 6-month period in which it applies except to the extent that adjusted profits from a field exceed 15 percent of accumulated capital investment in a field and then PRT only applies to 80 percent of such adjusted profits; 4 Over the life of each field, the oil allowance or exemption varied from 75 to 35 million barrels of crude oil.Page: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011