One thing that I was sure of was that I had very little knowledge on international contracts and taxation. I learned from the Bomani Commission that mining companies were using aggressive tax planning measures to declare losses in Tanzania and shift their profits to low tax jurisdictions. However I did not understand the implications of these, neither did most of fellow commissioners except two accountants in there. So I made up my mind that I will immediately go for further studies. I chose Bucerius Law School in Hamburg Germany. There I studied International Investments, International Taxation, Tax Law and International Arbitrations. If I had my second graduate degree before being in Bomani Commission some recommendations would largely have changed. For example I would have suggested a drastic change of mining regimes towards Production Sharing Agreements whereby an investor becomes a contractor and after removing costs incurred the profit is shared between the government or Government Corporation and an investor. This regime is used in Oil and Gas sub sector. Some changes I came to introduce way after the Mining Act was enacted. These include the introduction of capital gains tax in 2011, strengthening of thin capitalizations rules and abolition of VAT exemptions into Finance Laws of 2012.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 09:33:24 +0000
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