Severance Tax Practice

Ryan's Severance Tax practice utilizes a full-service approach to ensure all production tax incentives are identified and captured so that the minimum amount of tax is paid. Although a thorough understanding of tax compliance procedures is important, accurate compliance alone cannot minimize severance tax liability. Organizations must aggressively pursue all available production incentives to ensure they pay the minimum amount of tax. This process begins in the field by identifying properties that may qualify for an incentive and ends with documenting the incentive on the tax return, where the real economic value is realized. We begin our process with an in-depth analysis of our client's field operations and compliance efforts, enabling us to identify specific opportunities.

We have the ability to target where the opportunity lies and can identify the lease, the parties on the lease, and the time periods affected by the incentive.

Our tax professionals have experience in all facets of oil and gas taxation, including governmental auditing experience, "Big Oil" staff and management experience, and national public accounting experience. This breadth of experience ensures that our professionals understand all aspects of tax incentives and compliance—from identification through application and implementation, to reporting.

We begin each project by performing a thorough analysis of our client's operations. We then research each well thoroughly on an individual basis to ensure that all available opportunities have been identified and quantified. The majority of this work is done off site with information obtained from government and public sources. With the client's full knowledge and prior approval, we then aggressively pursue each opportunity, minimizing our client's tax liability in a consistent and efficient manner.

Services Provided:

We perform each project with the highest degree of professionalism, and pride ourselves on our ability to find opportunities previously overlooked. We leave no stone unturned in our pursuit to minimize our client's severance tax liability:

• Compliance reviews designed to identify and recover taxes associated with:
  • Incentives not claimed on tax return
  • Lease and commodity coding issues
  • Mishandled amendments
• Incentive reviews to identify, calculate, certify, and recover tax credits associated with:
  • High-cost gas production
  • Incremental production from recompletions or workovers
  • Previously inactive and shut-in well production
  • Production from horizontal wells, deep wells, and new discovery wells
• We also perform:
  • IRC Section 29 look-back reviews
  • Marketing cost deduction recalculation services
  • Open adjustment notice review and cleanup services
  • Sales and use tax credit recovery services focusing on lease activities
  • Tax reimbursement contract review services

Industry Expertise:

Our experienced team of severance tax professionals has produced significant, proven results for our clients:

• $15.8 million in tax credits for an integrated global energy company
• $6.1 million in tax credits for a large, independent oil and gas producer
• $5 million in tax credits for an integrated global energy company

For more information regarding Ryan's severance tax services, please contact us at 713.629.0090.

In The News
William Samuels Joins Ryan & Company; Expansion into State Severance Taxes Announced.