BC Underestimated How Much It Would Give to Gas Sector In Royalty Credits By $1 Billion
A review of four years of budget documents shows the B.C. government underestimated by $1 billion the amount of revenue it would forgo due to natural gas royalty credits, a shortfall that experts say highlights the volatile nature of markets and flaws in the province’s fossil fuel subsidy program.
Natural gas companies claimed between $163 million and $367 million more in royalty credits than B.C. budgeted in each of those years, with credits totalling more than $2 billion over that period.
In the end, the province brought in between $152 million and $199 million in natural gas royalties each year between the 2016-2017 and 2019-2020 fiscal years — a fraction of the more than $700 million in tobacco tax revenue raised each year during that same period. The province collected less natural gas royalties than expected in each of the years except 2016.
“It’s a rollercoaster every year,” said Werner Antweiler, director of the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business Prediction Markets. In the 2016 budget, for instance, the province estimated it would forgo $132 million from royalty credits in the 2016-2017 fiscal year, but the public accounts show the government actually lost $363 million in revenue.
EDIT
https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-natural-gas-royalties-revenue-shortfall/
