Project Finance NewsWire

April 2005

IN THIS ISSUE

US Limits Pollution from Power Plants
The US Environmental Protection Agency issued two new air emission rules in March that will require spending on costly new pollution control equipment retrofits at many existing power plants over ...

Regulatory Issues in US Utility Acquisitions
Observers expect to see consolidation in the electric utility sector over the next five years and, as a result of a weakened US dollar, US utility assets are of renewed interest to foreign investo...

Doomed to Invest in Russian Oil?
At a major oil and gas industry conference recently, Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov was asked about the prospects for foreign investment in Russia’s petroleum sector...

Environmental Update
Clear Skies Setback Republican leaders have largely given up on trying to pass a “Clear Skies Act” in the US Senate this year after the measure failed on a tie vote to clear the Senate environment...


IN OTHER NEWS

Telephone Users
Telephone users continue to win lawsuits against the US government asking for refunds of excise taxes they paid on phone service. In one of the latest cases, Fortis, Inc...

Wind Credits
Wind credits will remain at 1.8¢ 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 $1.13 an mmBtu last year. The IRS announces the credit amount each April for the past year...

Partnerships
Partnerships with both US taxpayers and foreign or tax-exempt entities as partners may fall into a trap that Congress may have set inadvertently last October...

Holland
Holland plans to eliminate a capital tax on money injected into Dutch holding companies. Multinational corporations usually own projects in other countries through offshore holding companies...

West Virginia
West Virginia may have to refund more than $400 million in severance taxes collected from coal companies that produce coal in the state, but sell it overseas...

Sales of Interests
Sales of interests in many partnerships and limited liability companies that own US property will have to wait in the future at least 30 days after reports are filed with US antitrust officials be...

Out-of-State Lessors
Out-of-state lessors do not have to pay income taxes in Alabama even though the leased property is used there, an Alabama judge ruled. A leasing company leases specialty railroad cars...

Texas
Texas is moving to close a loophole that allows projects in the state largely to avoid franchise taxes by operating as limited partnerships.

Contract Cancellation Payments
Contract cancellation payments can normally be deducted, but the IRS told one US company on audit that it had to treat such a payment as a cost of a new contract the company signed around the same...

Wyoming
Wyoming properly charged severance taxes on coal-bed methane.

German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder proposed reducing the corporate tax rate from 25% to 19% in a speech in parliament on March 17.

Poland
Poland will reduce its rates for valued added tax and corporate and individual income tax to 18% in 2008 ...

Ukraine
Ukraine began collecting a 20% value added tax on oil imports on March 1.

India
India will cut its corporate income tax rate.

Brazil
Brazil bowed to pressure and withdrew a tax measure on April 4 that would have subjected foreign parent companies to tax on exchange rate gains in the value of shares in Brazilian subsidiaries.

Native American
Native American lands that an Indian tribe acquires on the open market remain subject to local property taxes, the US Supreme Court said in late March...

Stapled Stock
Stapled stock structures can be unraveled without a tax cost. The IRS told one US company that was unraveling such a structure that its plan would not trigger a US income tax...

South Dakota
South Dakota enacted two tax incentives to encourage power companies to build new plants in the state...