The Scotland-based oil and gas industry could face a new local tax levy in 2009, a year already expected to be tough for cash strapped and credit-starved companies, so business is sounding alarm bells.

“Business needs certainty at this time of ebbing confidence, and there couldn't be a worse time to introduce a change like the local income tax,” Lesley Sawyers, chief exec of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, was quoted by newspaper The Scotsman as saying.

The paper reported Scotland could see its first recession since 1980. Worrying the Scots in the New Year is a government plan to shift taxes from locally held property to locally made money.

Any new tax would only bog down an industry still plodding through last year’s London-issued tax hikes for oil and gas.

The SCDI business organization said a new tax could make oil-rich Scotland the most-taxed U.K. region.

The Scottish oil and gas business last year expected to be exporting goods, services and oil and gas to the tune of £5 billion a year in 2010, according to Scottish Development International.

No new economic forecast has been promulgated since the economic crisis hit.

Scottish oil and gas fields are seen holding out at least until 2020, but the nations technology developers are seen carrying the torch for exports beyond the demise of oil and gas production.