Patriotic Energies and Technologies Limited is not giving up and is once again seeking an urgent meeting with Finance Minister Colm Imbert…this time, to clear up some misunderstandings as it relates to tax credits.
The company, which is wholly owned by the Oilfield Workers Trade Union, requested that the Government provide the company with tax credits that are provisioned in the incentive package offered for investment in the oil and gas sector.
The Patriotic directors said: “Patriotic would further like to note that the Government currently offers tax credits of 140 per cent of the investment made in the sector. The minister raised an issue with the transferability of the Tax Credit; it is important to note that this model of financing is commonplace in International Financial Markets and as such has been proposed to the Government as a path forward,”
“The terms of any Tax Credit requested are subject to negotiations and Patriotic is ready to address all related concerns,” the directors said.
The company’s directors also said, “There is absolutely no doubt that Patriotic has access to the US$1 Billion required to acquire and restart the refinery. There is also no doubt as it relates to its partners to adequately support Patriotic in restarting and profitably operating the assets. The parties now need to work together to finalise the terms under which the Government is prepared to receive the upfront payment of US$500 million.”
But Imbert in a letter on Saturday said there was a “complete misunderstanding of the true nature of transferable tax credits as compared to tax concessions or incentives to industry.”
He “Patriotic has said that the tax credits are nothing new and are given to multinational companies making a foreign direct investment in T&T. However, what is being missed is that the tax credits given to other companies investing in T&T are not transferable or tradeable. It is only non-transferable tax credits that are given to other companies making investments, and these non-transferable tax credits can only be used to offset tax on income from their own operations, and cannot be used by other unrelated companies and therefore do not represent any financial outlay on the part of Government.
Patriotic said if they were able to meet with Imbert it will make its upfront payment of US$500 million and invest another US$500 million to restart the Refinery.”
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