Shell just revealed the UK government has given it nearly £600 MILLION in tax rebates

Planet-wrecking fossil fuel corporate criminal Shell has just revealed it’s got around £590m in tax rebates from the UK government since 2015. This is not even the full picture – because 2015 is the earliest date its records go back to. Moreover, in 2023 the UK government gave Shell around £34m in tax back – when its global earnings soared to £22.4 billion.

Shell: a £600m tax rebate

As Energy Voice reported:

Shell has disclosed nearly $750m of tax rebates received from the UK Government for decommissioning its Brent oilfield in the North Sea.

The shutdown of the iconic field, which the international crude benchmark takes its name from, started in 2017 after four decades of production. Preparation began in 2006.

Later this year the final platform, Brent Charlie, is expected to be removed.

According to its latest payments to governments report, Shell received a $43.3m rebate during 2023 for Brent and other Northern North Sea assets.

Taken together with its previous reports, which only date back to 2015, a total of $748m of rebates have been disclosed from the government to Shell.

The public will have no idea how much Shell has actually got in tax back, though – because it hasn’t disclosed what the UK government gave it prior to 2015.

It’s all normal and above board… LOL

Apparently, the UK government giving Shell hundreds of millions of pounds in tax back is ‘normal’, though, and a “genuine business expense” – NOT a public “subsidy”  -according to Energy Voice.

This is against a backdrop of Shell paying NO tax in the UK for four years. It’s also against a backdrop of severe cuts to public services since 2015 (when Shell first reported its tax rebates) – y’know, ’cause the government didn’t have any money left’.

But hey – it’s NOT a subsidy. We repeated: NOT a subsidy.

As Rig Zone reported:

From 2018 — when it started publishing these figures — to 2021 Shell received tax credits from the UK’s treasury because of expenses tied to investments in new North Sea fields and rebates related to dismantling old platforms.

That’s the Brent oilfield rebates, by the way, allowing Shell not to have to pay any tax – while 6.5 million of us are in fuel poverty. Rig Zone continued:

Last year, the company paid $40.5 million in tax from a UK profit of $1.81 billion, according to its annual tax-contribution report. Without the government’s new Energy Profits Levy, Shell said it wouldn’t have had to pay corporate tax in the UK.

Shell: wrecking the planet while the rest of us freeze

Overall, Energy Voice reported that the UK government (that is, you and me) will end up paying out a staggering £24bn in tax back to fossil fuel giants, to get them to decommission their planet-wrecking activities.

This is of course portrayed as ‘fair’ and partly an ‘incentive’ for these climate criminals to transition to renewables. However, as has been well documented renewables in the likes of Shell’s world actually mean greenwashing.

But remember – Shell’s £600m tax rebate is NOT a subsidy.

NOT. A. SUBSIDY.

We’re sure that will give you some comfort as you choose between heating and eating next winter. It may not bring comfort to the loved ones of the 5,000 people who died due to cold homes in winter 2022/23, though.

But remember: the public giving Shell £600m is NOT a subsidy.

Feature image via Unsplash