Tecmad – Mining Services will have to pay a debt of Kz 248.5 million in taxes, Kz 62.5 million in fines and Kz 69.9 million in compensatory interest, making a total debt of Kz 382.0 million.
The General Tax Administration (AGT) notified, through a notice published in the June 14 edition of Jornal de Angola, Tecmad – Mining Services to collect a tax debt of 382.0 billion Kz referring to taxes on income from work for own account and income tax from work on behalf of others in the 2011 fiscal years and the Industrial Tax of 2015.
In the notification, the management of large taxpayers justifies the measure applied to the taxpayer Tecmad – Mining Sevices, a company linked to the production of diamonds in Angola, with the tax inspection processes that detected the debt and forced the tax authorities to remove the aforementioned company from the list of major contributors. According to the notice, three processes were created, two of which refer to the income tax from self-employed work and from others for the 2011 fiscal year, and another on the industrial tax of 2015.
In self-employment income taxes for 2011 alone, the total debt is around 5.9 million Kz, including fines valued at 1.0 million Kz and compensatory interest that reached 1.2 million Kz. As for the income tax from work for others, Tecmad owes the tax authorities 1.5 million Kz, while the unpaid industrial tax for the 2015 fiscal year reached 374 million Kz. Of this total, 245.0 million Kz is the value of the industrial tax, 61.2 million is the value of the fine, while the compensatory interest was fixed at 68.3 million Kz. Therefore, Tecmad will have to pay Kz 248.5 million as the total amount of taxes, plus Kz 62.5 million in fines and Kz 69.9 million in compensatory interest, making a total debt to be amortized of Kz 382.0 million .
The notice published on the 14th of June provided for a moratorium of 15 days, after which, according to Expansão, a 30-day delay began following the publication of the notice, in order to pay the tax debt in question or request payment of the same in installments. According to sources close to the case, the company has already appealed the decision and is now negotiating a pardon or reduction of the tax debt, taking into account the time horizon in which the debt occurred and the Angolan tax legislation.
Tecmad – Mining, which refused to comment on the notification due to the fact that 15 days have elapsed since the first notification and for having exceeded the deadlines to settle the debt, will not benefit from the 20% reduction as provided for in number nine of article 51 of the General Tax Code (CGT) which establishes the expected benefits. Expansion sources with the AGT indicate that the tax canons are clear and establish that “if the payment of the debt occurs within 15 days after notification, the taxpayer may, under the terms of article 166, benefit from a discount of 20 % of the total tax debt, as well as 30% of the interest amount, provided that the requirements for discounts are met.”
In accordance with tax legislation, in these and other cases, the taxpayer, if he does not agree with the corrections made by the tax authorities, may deduct the judicial challenge within 60 days. It was based on this postulate that a source from Tecmad – Mining Services assured Expansão that the company is still in the time frame to resolve the dispute with AGT.
The source did not elaborate on the reasons behind the non-payment of the aforementioned taxes, but Expansão found that this is a debt related to the prospecting period, taking into account that Tecmad – Mining Services only started operating in 2013 and in 2015 did not pay the industrial tax because the international financial crisis affected diamond prices on the international market.
AGT, based on tax legislation, warns that “at the end of the legal term for the payment of tax, without the debt being settled or the provision of the guarantee fixed in the amount due, the competent execution process will be initiated tax on the total debt amount.”
Tecmad – Mining Services started drilling at the Camutue diamond mine in 2013 in order to expand its diamond exploration activity in Lucapa, in the province of Lunda Norte. Camutue kimberlite started with production of 12,000 carats per month. The mine has been operating since 2007 on an extension of 28 hectares near the Luachimo River.
