This database was produced as part of the ICTD-funded project ‘Towards an Equitable Distribution of Resource Rents in Africa’ undertaken by Bertrand Laporte, Céline de Quatrebarbes, and Yannick Bouterige, based at FERDI, and in partnership with CERDI.
The database includes the details of the tax regime applicable to industrial gold mines in 21 African countries from the 1980s. The database features three major new innovations:
- An inventory of taxes and duties (rate, base and exemptions) payable during the prospecting phase and mining phase of a gold mining project;
- An entirely new level of historical depth; and
- Links between each piece of tax information and its legal source
The database gives useful insight into the evolution of gold mining tax systems, and allows for comparisons of the gold mining tax systems between countries and between different mining projects in the same country. The database also allows for comparisons of the share of mineral resource rents that go to the state with an average effective tax rate indicator. This enables researchers and analysts to determine the tax burden that should apply to industrial gold mines according to the legislation in place.
The tax database details the tax systems applicable to mining companies extracting gold on an industrial scale according to the legislation of each country. This includes things like the period of mineral rights, stability clauses, ground fees, royalties, corporate income tax, capital gains tax, withholding taxes on dividends, interest, and services, and import duties.
The legal database includes all the laws that govern the taxation of mining activity in each country, such as Mining Acts, Income Tax Acts, and Value Added Tax Acts. Filters allow for selecting only those that are in force during selected years of interest.
The website also includes a simulation tool for rent sharing between the state and investors in the 21 countries, given a low, medium, or high-grade mine and varying gold prices.
Read the associated ICTD Working Paper “What Do We Know about Mineral Resource Rent Sharing in Africa?”
and more more recent brief Mining Taxation in Africa: What Recent Evolution in 2018?
also available in French: La fiscalité minière en Afrique : Quelle évolution récente en 2018 ?
Learn more on the FERDI website.
