This certification course is part of a natural resources management path, some of which is produced in collaboration with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI). This course includes several distance learning courses:
For certified learners, the path ends with a 5-day face-to-face training course to “Analyze and explore the issues involved in sharing the rent of an extractive project”, organized by the Institute or one of its partners. This session will be in French.
The natural resource curse is an empirical relationship which states that the richer a country is in natural resources, the lower its growth rate. Several explanations for this curse have been put forward: the Dutch disease and the appreciation of the exchange rate, the deterioration in the quality of institutions, or the emergence of conflicts over the appropriation of resources. The risk posed by this curse weighs heavily on many resource-rich African countries. For these countries, the ability to set up an equitable/optimal tax system is crucial to raising revenues and financing their development.
The aim of this training course is to enable participants to reflect on the main risks and difficulties posed by the taxation of the extractive sector (aggressive tax optimization, indirect transfers, VAT credits, etc.) to which tax authorities must be particularly attentive. The main solutions adopted by certain countries will be examined. Throughout the various distance learning modules, these problems will be illustrated by case studies using basic tax and accounting concepts (balance sheet and income statement).
MODULE No. 1. Characteristics of the extractive sector (1 h 30) Understand how the economic characteristics of the sector and the existence of a natural resource curse influence the construction of a tax system specific to the extractive sector.
MODULE No.2. The principles of an optimal tax system (3 h) Understand what an optimal tax system versus a fair tax system means and understand the criteria on which trade-offs are made.
MODULE No.3. Aggressive tax optimization: corporate income tax and mining royalties (2 h 30) Understand the different aggressive tax optimization practices that companies can use and what solutions can be put in place by governments to limit them.
MODULE No.4. The implementation of the mining tax policy (1 h) Understand what challenges tax and customs administrations face and what solutions can be found in the implementation of tax policy within the extractive sector.
MODULE No.5. Taxation of mining capital gains (30 min) Understand how extractive companies can avoid capital gains taxation through indirect transfers and what levers governments have to try to address them.
MODULE No.6. Value added tax in the extractive sector (1 h 30) Understand how value-added tax works and what challenges it can pose in the extractive sector.
Economists, lawyers, tax specialists, tax authorities, ministries of mines and hydrocarbons, other public or private actors of the African extractive sector.
Requirements:
FERDI issues, on behalf of IHEDD-FERDI, a certificate mentioning the title of the training and the number of teaching hours.
To obtain the certificate for each distance learning course, learners must pass a final evaluation.
Contribution to training costs: 450 €
Scholarships may be available, thanks to the support of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE) and French Development Agency (AFD), for public administration executives from developing countries.
If you have a disability-related need, please contact our disability advisor: emeline.campagne@ferdi.fr
