Dangote Cement recently released its 2017 annual report revealing that it made a profit of N204.2 billion compared to N142.8 billion in 2016.
The company has often been criticised for “not paying taxes” or perhaps not paying enough taxes. However, records indicate Dangote Cement has been charged and paid taxes every year since 2014 and paid its highest tax as a percentage of profits in 2017. See below;
Profit before tax and taxes between 2013 and 2017.
So how much taxes was the company charged?
Dangote Cement was charged a total of N173.1 billion in taxes between 2013 and 2017. If you discount the N10.4 billion in tax credit it received, it has paid a total of N183.6 billion.
In terms of profits before taxes, the company has generated a total of N1.03 trillion in profit before taxes over this period. In terms of tax rate (taxes as a percentage of profits), it comes to about 17%.
On this back of this analysis, Dangote Cement has incurred taxes in Nigeria and it is quite a substantial amount.
What about tax holidays?
Dangote Cement also enjoys Pioneer taxes (tax holiday) for some of its plants. In terms of tax holidays, it saved N19,977 and N26,750 in 2017 and 2016 respectively. Important to note that Dangote Cement restated its taxes in its 2017 results, so we did not bother to go into prior years.
How much tax did they actually pay?
In case you are getting confused, tax charge is different from actual tax paid. In terms of the cash paid, the company paid N3.2 billion and N1.1 billion, N2.2 billion, N225.9 million and N1.9 billion in 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 respectively. So, in total cash of N8.6 billion is the net cash paid as tax.
NB: All figures sourced from the company’s annual reports.
