ANC Study Said to Propose S. Africa Mine Resource-Rent Tax

A study into mine nationalization ordered by South Africa’s ruling African National Congress proposes a 50 percent resource-rent tax rather than taking over operations, a party official who has seen the document said.

Previous ANC discussion documents defined resource-rent taxes as a levy triggered once the expected rate of return had been attained on an asset. Nationalizing the country’s mines would be too expensive for the government because it would cost almost 1 trillion rand ($131 billion), according to the study, the official, who declined to be identified because the document hasn’t been made public, said yesterday.