Chevron Paid Five Times More Taxes Abroad Than at Home in 2023
Chevron Paid Five Times More Taxes Abroad Than at Home in 2023 | OilPrice.com
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Chevron paid three times more in taxes in three African countries than it did at home, a Dodd-Frank Act disclosure has revealed.
The supermajor paid some $6.25 billion in taxes and production sharing to Nigeria, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea last year, Bloomberg reported, citing the disclosure. At home, Chevron’s tax bill stood at $1.99 billion.
The biggest single foreign beneficiary of Chevron tax money, however, was Australia’s revenue service thanks to the Wheatstone and Gorgon liquefied natural gas projects. The company’s tax bill in Australia last year stood at $3.98 billion.
“Civil society is really excited to see disclosure after 15 years of intense fighting and lobbying by the US oil and gas industry,” Aubrey Menard, senior policy advisor for natural resource justice at Oxfam America, told Bloomberg. The disclosures “will allow us to see what we’re actually receiving in exchange of our natural resources, whether it’s a fair deal or if we’re subsidizing our own extinction,” Menard also said.
The Dodd-Frank Act, signed into law in 2010, sought to curb market risk and prop up consumer protection defenses in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Transparency was another foundational principle of the Dodd-Frank legislation, and it was under this transparency principle that large corporations were obliged to disclose their tax payments in foreign jurisdictions. U.S. commodity majors lobbied the Securities and Exchange Commission against the disclosures but unsuccessfully.
“Chevron complies with all legal and contractual requirements in jurisdictions where the company operates,” company spokesman Bill Turenne told Bloomberg. “Chevron supports well-designed financial disclosure requirements and will continue to work with relevant government agencies toward transparency and accountability between governments and the oil and gas industry.”
Chevron’s tax bill is set to swell after it completes the takeover of Hess Corp, which is Exxon’s partner in Guyana’s oil sector. The deal just got the green light from the Federal Trade Commission.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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Charles is a writer for Oilprice.com
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