IN THIS ISSUE
Weather Derivatives as a Financing Tool
Weather derivatives are starting to make an appearance in the project finance market...
Merchant Plants Start to Sell
Buyers and sellers of merchant power projects in the United States are beginning to overcome the many obstacles that have slowed sales of such projects during the last several years...
FERC Restricts Power Plant Sales to Utilities
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is making it hard for franchised utilities in the United States to buy power plants from distressed independent power companies...
Carbon Sinks
If a mandatory greenhouse gas reduction program is ever implemented in the United States, carbon sinks will be an important part of the compliance equation for US companies...
Current Issues in Financing Ethanol Plants
Ethanol is a significant and growing part of the energy infrastructure of the United States. There are currently 73 ethanol production facilities in operation in the US...
New Credit Standards for Gas Pipeline Customers
Interstate natural gas pipelines will be required to adopt standardized procedures for determining the creditworthiness of their shippers, or customers, under new proposed rules that the Federal E...
FERC Reaffirms Its Lead Role in LNG
A US government order in late March and an agreement reached among three federal agencies in February reconfirmed the supremacy of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over the permitting and ...
Environmental update - April 2004
IN OTHER NEWS
Contract Buyout Payment
Contract buyout payment recipients got good news...
A Depreciation Bonus
A DEPRECIATION BONUS issue is causing controversy.
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico is debating whether to impose a 29% withholding tax on interest payments on some commercial bank loans...
Wind Credits
Wind credits will remain at 1.8ยข a kilowatt hour in 2004, the IRS said in late March. Owners of wind farms whose projects went into service by the end of last year can claim a tax credit of 1...
Section 29
SECTION 29 tax credits were $1.1036 an mmBtu last year. The IRS announces the credit amount each April for the past year...
Canadian Income Funds
Bribes
Bribes paid by an American company to avoid sales taxes and customs duties in Haiti may be a crime under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a US appeals court ruled in February...
Holland
Holland and the United States agreed in a treaty protocol on March 8 to eliminate withholding taxes on certain dividends. The protocol must still be ratified by the US Senate...
Venezuela
Venezuela said it plans to increase income taxes on oil and natural gas companies by $3 billion. Tax Commissioner Jose Vielma Mora made the announcement on March 30...
Peru
PERU imposed a bank transactions tax on March 1.
Brazil
BRAZIL may find that an increase of two taxes in 1999 was unconstitutional, requiring refunds of as much as $5.17 billion.
Stranded Cost Recoveries
Stranded cost recoveries by utilities are taxable income, the IRS said in an audit...
California
Indonesia
Indonesia told Mauritius that it plans to cancel a tax treaty between the two countries at the end of this year...
A Late Bankruptcy Claim
A late bankruptcy claim did not prevent the IRS from collecting back taxes...
Denmark
Denmark made several tax law changes to reduce its attractiveness as a base for offshore holding companies. The changes are in legislation that the Danish parliament approved on March 30...
A Luxembourg Holding Company
A Luxembourg holding company qualified for a 5% withholding rate on dividends paid to it by a US subsidiary...
Japan
Japan denied a Japanese investor in a US limited partnership passthrough of losses from the partnership. It said the partnership is a corporation for tax purposes in Japan...
Direct Taxes
Direct taxes face a constitutional barrier...
Minor memos
The IRS put taxpayers on notice that it plans to deny tax deductions shareholders claim for the loss in market value of shares in corporations that disclosed accounting fraud or other illegal conduct.