Reuters: Britain should privatise onshore oil and gas deposits: Kemp

Oil and gas taxation has become a major source of conflict between producers and Britain's tax authorities.

But like other indirect taxes, the amount of attention oil and gas taxes draw is out of all proportion to the amount of money they raise for the treasury.

Britain raised less than 5 billion pounds ($8.5 billion) from taxes on oil and gas production last year, about 1 percent of all central government receipts, according to the authorities.

Oil and gas taxes raised less money than duty on alcohol (10 billion pounds) or cigarettes (9 billion) and only a little more than minor imposts such as insurance premium tax (3 billion), air passenger duty (3 billion) and landfill tax (1 billion).
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