IN THIS ISSUE

The Next Frontier: Subsovereign Projects

Municipal project finance is presenting itself as a new frontier in emerging market project development...

The Route to a Financeable Toll Road

Toll road development on a public-private partnership basis is expected to increase in various regions of the world in the months and years ahead...

When Will the Next Power Crisis Start in California? | Norton Rose Fulbright

California has not yet fixed the problems that led to the electricity crisis in 2000 and 2001, though there has been some progress in restoring a workable electricity market structure...

Libya Poised to be a Major Gas Exporter

The partial lifting of US trade sanctions against Libya, following the removal of UN sanctions last September, should help to propel Libya into the ranks of major league gas exporters...

Libya Unveils Terms for Foreign Investors

Libya released the details in late April of the business deal it expects with foreign oil and gas companies that want to do business in the country...

When to Restate Oil and Gas Reserves

Oil and gas companies use outside consultants and internal advisory committees to verify their oil and gas reserve estimates...

Environtmental update - June 2004

IN OTHER NEWS

Tax-Exempt Financing

Tax-Exempt Financing will be harder to arrange for power plants under new regulations the Internal Revenue Service proposed in May...

Synfuel

Synfuel hearings have been postponed — and possibly shelved — by Congress...

Power Plants

Power plants in the United States are not “US real property,” the IRS has decided...

Exports

Exports of coal, electricity and other commodities cannot be taxed. The US constitution forbids the federal government from imposing any “Tax or Duty ... on Articles exported from any State...

Some Use Taxes

Some use taxes are an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce, an Indiana court suggested. Simon Aviation leased two aircraft...

Sale of an Offshore Subsidiary

Sale of an offshore subsidiary did not trigger taxes in the United States, the US Tax Court said in a decision eagerly awaited by US industry...

Telephone Companies

Telephone companies are considered manufacturers of “tangible personal property,” the Minnesota Supreme Court said...

Two Hybrid Debt Instruments

Two hybrid debt instruments survived separate IRS audits...

A Mexican Court

A Mexican court said that companies cannot deduct profit-sharing payments to employees. Most infrastructure projects in Mexico are owned by a project company with no employees...

Peru

PERU is expected to impose a tax of up to 3% on mining companies on their gross revenue from mineral sales

Venezuela

VENEZUELA said it has found “massive evasion of income taxes” by the multinational oil companies. The minister of energy and mines ...

Bolivia

Bolivia is expected to start collecting a financial transactions tax on July 1. The tax will be 0.3% the first year and then drop to 0.25% the next year...

Bulgaria

Bulgaria is expected to reduce the corporate tax rate from 19.5 to 15% starting in 2005. The government called for the reduction in the latest budget in late April...

Italy

Italy ruled out deductions for payments to tax havens. Italy refused in April to let an Italian company deduct payments it made to a company in Lichtenstein for services...

Turkey

Turkey is considering new tax holidays as an inducement to foreigners to invest in the country...

India

INDIA cannot tax foreign companies doing business in the country at a higher rate than it taxes local companies, a tax tribunal ruled.

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy did not discharge taxes owed to the United States...

Minor Memos.

Minor Memos. The US Treasury is being urged to waive withholding taxes on dividends that US companies pay to shareholders in the United Kingdom...