“The billion-dollar extractive industry is notorious for its abuses. Tax dodging is one of them, alongside human rights and environmental violations.”
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Coal, oil, gas, minerals… The extractive industry plunders the resources of countries in the Global South, causing irreversible damage to the environment and harmful impacts on the communities. It makes billions of profits but does not pay its due share of taxes.
Tax dodging by multinationals in the extractive sector results in loss of billions of much needed tax revenue in developing countries
We urge social movements, rights and environmental organisations, citizens’ groups, NGOs, and activists to campaign for #TaxJustice in the Extractive industry.
OUR OBJECTIVES
- Build linkages & convergences with other movements and the campaigns focusing on the extractive sector.
- Expose the tax abuses of extractive corporations
- Build and shape strong public opinion in support of tax and fiscal justice in the extractive sector
OUR DEMANDS
The GATJ Campaign on Tax Justice in the Extractive Industry will push for the following demands. Depending on the national and regional contexts as well as organizational priorities and capacities, GATJ members and allies may carry all the demands or may strategically choose the demands that they would like to focus on.
- Stop the plunder and exploitation of natural and human resources and move away from reliance on extractivist economies characterized by over-production and over-consumption by the wealthy.
- Ensure a comprehensive and effective tax regime for extractive industries, including through resource or export taxes on the export of raw materials from extractive activities, taxation of services related to extractive industries and progressive environmental taxes. Apply effective anti-abuse measures to prevent corporate tax avoidance and other types of illicit financial flows.
- Levy just, progressive and adequate tax rates on mining and extractive activities and ensure that this revenue contributes to quality public services for all, with special priority to the needs of mining-affected communities and vulnerable groups.
- Scrap wasteful tax incentives granted to extractive industries.
- End the impunity of corporations in mining and other extractives industries in their tax abusive practices, including illicit financial flows, and hold them to account for compliance with environmental standards, human rights and fiscal policies. Ensure the financial transparency of extractive corporations, and publish all contracts and any agreements entered into by governments for the exploitation of natural resources, including Production Sharing Agreements.
- Ensure transparency and accountability at different levels of government and parliamentary policy-making and regulation over the extractives industry. Implement strict anti-corruption policies and punish government officials who are involved in corrupt practices in all phases of mining and extractivist activities, from exploration and licensing to production, use and final point of sale. Hold governments, parliaments, sub-national state bodies and their agencies to account for the tax abuses of mining companies and the complicity of local elites.
- Institute and enforce tighter social, financial and environmental regulations and sanctions over the extractives sector. Close down harmful and abusive mining projects/companies.
- Reject or cancel provisions for fiscal stability, investor state dispute settlement, grandfathering and other lock-in clauses in treaties, agreements and contracts with extractive industries, which constrain the decision-making processes of governments, legislative and parliamentary bodies over fiscal and regulatory concerns.
- Uphold the rights of communities and women affected by mining and other extractivist activities, including their right to protect their communities.
- Protect the rights of the artisanal miners.
Join the Global Alliance for Tax Justice and its members in the Global Day of Action on #TaxJustice in the Extractives on Nov 19, 2019!
- Circulate our call to action
- Organize public actions
- Circulate infographics on unjust tax policies governing the extractive industry in your country
- Organize a webinar, educational discussions in communities, schools & workplaces
- Share information on initiatives addressing the taxation challenges in the extractive sector
- Poste & repost social media stories from women & community leaders affected by extractive projects
- Target extractive companies to call them out for tax avoidance and other tax abuses
- Organize media conferences or forums
- Release or translate blog articles
… and other activities that are feasible and strategic in your national or regional context!
More information
For more information about the Global Day of Action on Tax Justice in the Extractive Industry on November 19, or for help in preparing visuals and activities, please feel free to reach out to us:
- In Asia: [email protected]
- In Africa and globally: [email protected]
- In Latin America and the Caribbean: [email protected]
- In Europe & North America: [email protected]
Image ©IvanBandura/Unsplash