Windfall taxes on energy companies are a bad idea

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused oil and natural-gas prices to rocket, which has strengthened politicians’ impulses to levy “windfall taxes”. But imposing them would be a mistake

Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitask” is particularly strong today because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused oil and natural-gas prices to rocket and then to gyrate wildly, giving the perception that firms are profiting from bloodshed. Governments, having run up enormous debts during the pandemic, must now find more cash to protect poor consumers from soaring energy bills and to boost defence spending.

Imposing windfall taxes is nevertheless a mistake. Start with the fact that energy markets go through cycles of boom and bust. The years Ms Warren has chosen as a benchmark were not good ones: in two of them, 2015 and 2016, the net operating margin of the global listed energy industry was negative. There was an other year of operating losses in 2020, during which the oil price briefly fell below zero owing to the pandemic.

whose boss recently said that high prices had turned the firm into a “cash machine”. But today’s energy crisis shows that the world needs a carefully managed phase-out of carbon emissions, not a sudden halt in fossil-fuel investment, especially if Europe is to wean itself off Russian gas. Renewable energy cannot immediately replace gas for some tasks, such as heating homes with gas boilers.

The European Commission says that renewable producers, which are also benefiting from high prices, should pay up too. This is doubly misguided. If even clean-energy companies have their profits seized during periods of shortages then the incentive to solve renewables’ intermittency problem, for example by making batteries better or by storing energy as hydrogen, will be blunted. And it is not just power shortages that need to be plugged as economies move to net zero.

The thorniest argument is that companies are benefiting from war. Windfall taxes live up to their name when firms have profited not from wise decisions, but from unforeseeable events that are unrelated to their investment choices. Yet geopolitics is a top concern of big energy firms, which must lay pipelines that cross borders and anticipate global energy needs far in advance.

 

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Want to sell my virginity for gasoline

foxnews Gov't/GOP & DEMS is not for the people. Its for the wealthy/ corporate lobbyists. why are they manuf in China? becuz of profit.

It's a acceptable trade-off; if, Gasoline Taxes at the Pump are reduced to help ordinary Americans get back forth to Work. IT'S CALLED SHARED SACRIFICE! AND - - certainly - - Big Oil can afford it!

Where would the additional tax be used?

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It is the sanctions that has backfired, hitting ordinary Westerners hard.

It would be a mistake asking shareholders to take less. Let's hammer the poor eh

Massive social unrest and economic deviation if they don’t

Back-channel diplomacy is not working at all. Dear Russian Brothers & Sisters, Please visit this grave and pray to reduce anger of their son... Дорогие русские братья и сестры Пожалуйста, посетите эту могилу и помолитесь, чтобы уменьшить гнев их сына.

Back-channel diplomacy is not working at all. Dear Russian Brothers & Sisters, Please visit this grave and pray to reduce anger of their son.. Дорогие русские братья и сестры Пожалуйста, посетите эту могилу и помолитесь, чтобы уменьшить гнев их сына.

Back-channel diplomacy is not working at all. Dear Russian Brothers & Sisters, Please visit this grave and pray to reduce anger of their son. Дорогие русские братья и сестры Пожалуйста, посетите эту могилу и помолитесь, чтобы уменьшить гнев их сына.

Tax away oil companies' future investments, and in less than a decade, be ready for a complete economic collapse caused by a global liquid fuel shortage, combined with hyperinflation, making all fiat money nearly worthless. Bad idea.

not only the mistake, but it is robbery from the war time

Except a significant part of the “caused oil and natural-gas prices to rocket” is from those companies leveraging their positions to make a windfall - so maybe, just maybe, a tax on obscene profits is exactly what’s called for!

We have downside taxpayer funded bailouts, why not have special windfall taxes?

Ukraine_War made known that Elite Zionists wants to destroy all Nat. Reg. & Continental Powers including USA, UK, Russia, China, NATO, CSTO & SEATO, to form One State Rule based on an artificial faith, Satanism, as a tool to control and command the people for a Fragile Slavery.

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