	australian minister sees targeted oil tax strategy australia s  oil tax strategy is probably best tackled in terms of a targeted rather than broadly based approach federal resources and energy minister gareth evans told a meeting here he told the australian petroleum exploration association apea annual conference there was a prospect of developing a package that would recognise the government s economic priorities while also meeting some of the industry s concerns evans was referring to a nearly completed government review of oil taxation evans said there were plenty of examples where targeted approaches to oil industry taxation had produced good results in recent years these include the reduction in the top marginal  excise rate on old bass strait oil found before september to pct from pct and the waiver of excise on onshore oil announced last september he said the industry through the apea has been calling for the elimination of secondary taxation on oil in order to boost incentives for prospecting against a background of weak prices and australia s relatively low exploration levels while nobody wants to add further unnecessary complexity to an already complex taxation regime i am inclined to favour these kinds of tailored approaches ahead of sweeping changes which leave government revenue much reduced and may still leave a lot of uncertainty as to what individual companies are going to do in major areas evans said he said the government did not intend to change its resource rent taxation rrt legislation now before parliament in response to industry calls to allow all exploration expenditure in a given area to be deductible as previously reported rrt is a tax of pct limited to highly prospective offshore areas based on profits after a certain rate of return has been achieved for individual projects apea has said it is not a true profit based tax because exploration deductibility is limited to successful projects evans said the decision not to change rrt was based more than anything on the government s desire to ensure the certainty and stability of the new regime adding that major investments have already been planned on the existing ground rules reuter 
