Power companies and banks with investments in California had best batten down the hatches: the storm they weathered last summer when electricity prices soared to unprecedented levels is likely to ...

Several events in early November spell big trouble ahead for generators in the California market...

Projects on Indian reservations qualify potentially for three federal tax subsidies, but time is running out to take advantage of them. The projects must be operating by December 2003...

The Internal Revenue Service said in late October that it has decided to stop issuing rulings in syncoal projects on the question whether the output qualifies as a “synthetic fuel from coal...

Multinational companies doing business in the United States run a growing risk of being sued in the US courts for such things as human rights violations and environmental damage caused in other co...

MERCHANT PLANT DEVELOPERS can probably avoid having to pay tax grossups on their electric interties by using a grantor trust structure...

BANKS LENDING TO MERCHANT PLANTS ARE STARTING TO FRET about whether the projects might have to refund some money collected for electricity...

COMPANIES THAT HAVE BORROWED MONEY should be careful when changing their tax classifications. It could trigger taxes on the debt instrument...

SECTION 29 TAX CREDITS would be extended through 2012 under bills introduced in the House and Senate in October. The two Senators pushing the bill in the Senate – Frank Murkowski (R...

LESSEES BUYING ASSETS OUT FROM UNDER LEASES cannot deduct part of the payment immediately as a cost to cancel the lease, the US tax court said in November...

LILOS come under attack on audit. The IRS released a “field service advice” in mid-November to an agent handling an audit of a US company that participated in LILOs...

TURBINE MAINTENANCE COSTS should be easier to deduct after a court decision in October. A barge company overhauled the engines on its towboats every three to four years...

WIND PROJECTS may not benefit from state tax incentives. The US government offers a tax credit of 1.7 cents a kilowatt hour for generating electricity from wind...

MACHINERY CANNOT BE IN SERVICE for tax purposes until employees of the owner have been trained to use it, the IRS said...

A LOCAL DISTRIBUTION COMPANY has gone to court to challenge the IRS over whether it must pay income taxes on refunds from its gas suppliers...

INTERSTATE GAS PIPELINE COMPANIES are not overburdened by the New York franchise tax, a state appeals court said...

ANOTHER UTILITY files a back claim for investment tax credits for the period 1986 through 1990...

OWNERSHIP BY VOTE may not be an easy matter to determine. The US tax laws require that a parent company own a subsidiary at least 80% by vote in order to file a consolidated tax return...

CAREFUL when selling a subsidiary to a related company. A Dutch company with operations in the United States sold one of its US subsidiaries – Sub A – to another US subsidiary – Sub B...

BRIEFLY NOTED: Senator Charles Grassley (R...