News

Chad has adopted a new Mining Act (Ordinance No. 004/PR/2018 of 21 February 2018). It introduces a rent tax of 50% and a free equity for the State in the capital of the operating company of 12.5%. In addition, the Finance Act, 2017, increased the amounts of fixed fees and ground fees (Act No. 033/PR/2016 of 31 December 2016). These measures therefore significantly increase the tax burden applicable to gold mining companies. For a representative medium grade mine (3g/t) and a gold price of $1250/oz, the average effective tax rate (AETR) increases from 44% to 71%.

While it was set at 35%, the corporate income tax (CIT) rate in Guinea was reduced to 25% by the Finance Act, 2018 (Act L/2017/059/AN of 12 December 2017). However, phone companies, banks and insurance companies and companies importing, storing and distributing petroleum products remain taxed at 35% of their profits. For their part, holders of mineral rights are subject to a rate of 30%.

Value added tax (VAT) was introduced in Guinea in 1996 (Act L/95/035/CTRN of 30 June 1995). Taxable transactions are subject to a single rate of 18%, except for international exports and transport, which benefit from the zero rate. The Finance Act, 2016, attempted to raise the full rate to 20% (Act L/2016/001/AN of 18 January 2016), but the Finance Act, 2017, cancelled this measure (Act L/2016/066/AN of 19 December 2016). Holders of mineral rights are exempt from VAT on their imports of equipment, materials, machinery and consumables included on the approved mining list (Act L/2011/006/CNT of 9 September 2011 amended by Act L/2013/053/CNT of 8 April 2013).

Holders of mineral rights on Gabonese territory are now liable to a surveillance fee. It was introduced by section 12 of the Finance Act, 2018 (Act No. 021/2017 of 26 January 2018). It amounts to 50 CFA Francs per hectare for holders of prospecting licences and 300 CFA Francs per hectare for holders of mining licences and mining concessions. It is due annually, in addition to the ground fee set by section 279 of the Mining Act (Act No. 017/2014 of 30 January 2015). It has to be paid before June 31 of each year to the accounting officer of the Geospatial Agency.

Updated tax data for 2017 and 2018 are now available for Cameroon, Republic of the Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Cameroon has adopted a new Mining Act (Act No. 2016/017 of 14 December 2016). The Republic of the Congo has not changed its mining taxation (Act No. 33-2016 of 31 December 2016 and Act No. 41-2017 of 29 December 2017). The DRC has in-depth reformed its Mining Act (Act No. 007/2002 of 11 July 2002 as amended by Act No. 18/001 of 9 March 2018).