Shale gas law draft sent to parliament
Poland’s government has sent the new draft law on the extraction of hydrocarbons to parliament. Another draft sent to parliament on Wednesday is the new mining and extraction tax bill.
The draft law stipulates for extraction of shale gas to be tax-free until 2020. After that the tax burden will not exceed 40 percent of income. That burden on shale gas would include a 1.5 percent royalty tax per cubic meter of extracted gas regardless of extraction costs, an up to 25 percent tax on positive cash flows as well as the corporate income tax.
Work on the so-called shale gas law took more than two years. During that time many businesses involved in gas exploration complained about the uncertainty. Several foreign firms have already decided to withdraw from shale business in Poland.
