South Project

The Global South Project's submission to the Ad Hoc Committee to Draft Terms of Reference for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. Coming out of the work of the project members, this submission argues that a forthcoming UN Tax Convention must cover a fundamental overhaul of the international tax system to stop the bleeding of capital, tax corporations where economic activities take place, and provide Global South countries with revenues to finance development.

This booklet is a brief guide to understanding illicit financial flows and base erosion profit shifting in the South African context. It covers the basics of what illicit financial flows are and how they are linked to the developmental history of South Africa. It describes two case studies of mining companies accused of profit shifting in South Africa, the impacts this profit shifting has, and finally, some recommendations on actions that can be taken in order to address the issue.

This pamphlet is a summary of some of the research done on the case of transfer mispricing at Vale S.A. Vale is the largest mining company in Brazil, bringing in billions of dollars in revenue each year, and operating across the country - often leaving a devastating ecological footprint in its wake. This pamphlet shows an example of how local municipalities may have lost out on crucial tax revenue through alleged profit shifting at Vale between 2010 and 2011. This pamphlet was produced as part of a tour through Europe by Latin American mine-affected communities, called the ‘Latin American Caravan for the Defence of Integral Ecology Under Times of Extractivism’.

The original affidavits from the Samancor case, including statements from a union leader, a researcher, and the whistleblower in the case. Samancor, one of the largest chrome companies in the world, has been accused of siphoning millions of dollars out of South Africa through complex profit shifting schemes. At the same time, workers at the company are experiencing retrenchments, while the Employee Share Ownership Plan has failed to pay out any dividends. In 2019, the mineworkers’ union AMCU lodged a case at the Johannesburg High Court in order to reclaim these funds.