Maybe learn how the tax system works. chevron will pay tax on those LNG plants shortly, once the depreciation expenses runs it course, ie paid back the infrastructure costs. If you bothered to research the topic you’d see the long term inbound investor into the sector is Shell, whom is generally the only foreign company whom it’s a top 10 tax payer in australia. The reason is the depreciation has run its course on the legacy projects. This is the global nature of O&G.
Chevron did recently pay tax because the oil and gas prices were so high that they exceed those depreciation deductions. It is fair, this is a risky sector, the owners want their initial investment back and our tax system, like most across the globe realise this to attract investment. So you can deduct that capital expenditure. It’s pretty standard stuff here. Chevron can’t really use transfer pricing to offshore it’s profits, that doesn’t work in O&G and mining, again learn tax legislation. You can abuse debt loading to a degree, but thin capitalisation rules have stopped a lot of it and the ATO has clamped down even further on the internal treasury functions on non commercial interest. You’re not understanding chevron vs the awful tech and low margin retail related multinationals who are the bad guys here and globally.
BHP/RIOs iron ore marketing hubs in Singapore didn’t really transfer a material amount of profit out of australia. I don’t agree with it, and the ATO stopped it, but it was really small fry and they were still paying almost the bulk of the tax here.
Do a bit more reading on tax depreciation, thin cap and transfer pricing. It’ll validate what I am saying.
Prior labor governments tried super profit taxes on mining, and it appears the QLD labor gov got its snout in the trough again. This increases sovereign risk investing here. I doubt WA labor is that stupid, but you never know, or federally who knows. But QLD is among the highest taxed mining jurisdiction in the world now, congrats labor. 0 consultation too.
BHP Price at posting:
$41.20 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)