Legal Aspects of Taxation of Petroleum and Natural Gas

Governments as owners of minerals or guardians of national interests have many financial instruments (fiscal and non fiscal) to obtain the economic rent expected of the exploitation of oil and natural gas resources. As far as the fiscal means is concerned, mineral section and in the framework of our study here, petroluem and natural gas, make the special tax bases of different rates that in turn have a role in the formation of a fiscal system special to this section in some countries. Development of methods of taxation on oil enable some countries to get a huge share of the rent through taxation of operations run by private sector (domestic and international petroleum companies) with no direct governmental investment or risks. In Iran, because of the exclusive domonion and ownership of minerals by the government, the National Petroleum Company as operator of petroleum operations, has a special fiscal arrangement with the state. In this article we compare the Iranian petroleum fiscal regime with that of other countries.