The Improvement of the North Sea Tax System

<p>A few years ago it looked as if the North Sea tax system, like other aspects of UK oil policy, might succumb to that national weakness of ours known as 'adversary politics'. The Oil Taxation Act of 1975 was one of a number of measures carried out by the Labour Government to counteract what they regarded as a bias in favour of business interests on the part of their Conservative predecessors. The outgoing Conservative Government had made it clear that it accepted the case for an increase in North sea taxation. But we know that this would have been on different lines, with tax rates more closely related to profitability. </p>