Am I missing something? I remember way back when gold was $35 an ounce. If a 5% tax were levied on that, the state would get $1.75, right? But with gold at about $1600 an ounce, the state gets $80. That seems not so bad.
This whole "no matter the price of gold" bit seems kind of crazy -- unless I'm misunderstanding this entirely. And I'm not sure that "exemption" is the right word to use if a 5% tax rate is being imposed. Limit? Perhaps. But "exemption"? I'm not sure I see it.
What the article talks about if I understand it, it that the mining industry’s income tax is locked at 5%.
What you would be thinking about I believe is a royalty on which the article is silent.
The article does not mention royalties which is the usually way that states wring money out of mining companies which is a less damaging way of taxing a mining company because it is totally weighted on the success of removing minerals from the ground and producing a profit from that activity.