Jim Chalmers is close to pulling the trigger on a tax rise on big gas producer profits potentially worth billions of dollars extra to the federal government, after the Treasurer expressed concern that the petroleum resource rent tax is failing to deliver as much revenue as Labor and the community expects.

Treasury in the past few days delivered Dr Chalmers a report recommending an overhaul of the $2 billion-a-year PRRT that applies to oil and gas projects in offshore federal waters.