Guyana’s aim to locate its PSA fiscal regime in a proficient national tax system

Introduction

Today’s column offers a wrap-up of the ABCs of hydrocarbons taxation, which I introduced in last week’s column. There I focused on Guyana’s Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) oil and gas fiscal regime, treated as a huge sub-set of Guyana’s larger and more comprehensive tax system. In my concluding observation I last week, I introduced the carefully crafted practical guidance and policy advice provided by the IMF to Member States. [See, Petroleum Fiscal Regimes, IMF e Library]

For economies like Guyana there are clearly important interactions between the hydrocarbon fiscal regime and the nation’s more comprehensive tax system. As a general rule, I would argue that, a PSA regime functions more effectively the more embedded are the following characteristics or features of the national tax system:

MRV Capability [That is, the easy ability to measure and monitor, review and report on, as well as verify and vindicate the operational capability of the hydrocarbon regime, PSA].