Date: Jan 4, 2019
Mining companies operating in Zambia have failed to show how higher taxes introduced this year will affect their profitability despite objecting to the new framework, a senior government official said on Thursday.
The country, Africa’s second-largest copper producer, increased its sliding scale for royalties of 4 to 6 percent by 1.5 percentage points from Jan. 1 and introduced a new 10 percent tax when the price of copper exceeds $7,500 per tonne.
Zambia also plans to replace value-added tax with a sales tax by April to help bring down mounting public debt.
The Chamber of Mines said last month that as a result of the changes, more than 58 percent of Zambia’s copper producers would be loss-making at current prices.
Paul Chanda, permanent secretary for mines, said his ministry had asked individual mining companies to provide financial models by Friday last week on how the new taxes would impact them, but none had done so.
