Prospects that some major gold mining companies in Tanzania would follow Barrick Gold Tanzania exemplary of ``goodwill gesture`` of paying advance corporate tax look imminently hard to pin down.

Way back in October 2006, mostly acting under government`s threats on freezing gold miners` bank accounts unless they settled issues related to fiscal liabilities and mining contracts, Barrick Gold Tanzania acted quickly in response by agreeing to pay USD7 million a year for five years as advance payment for corporate tax.

Payments were not statutory, rather voluntary because existing legal and contractual frameworks provides for safeguards against immediate payment of a range of taxes.

In an interview recently, Commissioner for Minerals Dr. Peter Kafumu said that apart from Barrick, none of the other gold mining giants have come out their corporate shell and declare similar voluntary tax compliance intentions.

Tanzania`s Mining Act (1998) provides for 15 percent additional capital allowance on unredeemed qualifying capital expenditure.

This tax holiday had effectively delayed payment of 30 percent corporate tax until the mining company had recouped costs of their initial capital, mostly as alarming as gold miners are known to be annually declaring huge losses.

The impact of the clause had been to push forward the day when companies would start paying the corporate tax.

In addition, companies are exempt from Tanzania`s 20 percent value-added tax on goods and products used exclusively for mining and can offset all equipment and machinery costs against their earnings.

Soon after Barrick`s commitments, AngloGold followed suit and promised the government would start paying corporate tax in 2011, four years earlier than initially expected.

In contrasting perspective, however, tax advances being paid to the country`s Treasury since 2006 by Barrick Gold Tanzania was oddly peanut compared with Barrick Gold Corp.

President and chief executive officer Greg Wilkins\' pay package of USD9.4-million, according to Toronto Globe & Mail.

When reached for comments, the Director fof Ashanti Gold Mine Hatibu Senkoro said that his company would only volunteer to pay corporate tax advances the moment his firm breaks even and starts making sustainable profits.

Nevertheless, regardless of Ashanti`s corporate profitability status, he said the company was paying withholding taxes, value added tax (VAT) and 3 percent royalty to Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA).

As part of government's efforts to obtain its real share of the gold wealth, Dr Kafumu said a round the clock gold yields' inspection at all major gold mining sites has been introduced to rein in on possible cheat on actual harvests by miners so as to deny Treasury taxes.

``We aim at 24/7 hours official inspection so that actual records about minerals output are obtained instead of waiting for investors to do the job on our behalf\" he stressed.

He said the system is already in place at all major gold mines, adding that successful implementation of the exercise would enable the government to properly assess mineral yields for tax purposes and curb alleged dishonest corporate reporting through concoction of actual output in order to delay payment of corporate taxes.

However, Dr Kafumu cautioned that investment in mining undertaking in Tanzania was costly, mostly so because mining companies have also to invest in basic infrastructure in and around the mining areas.

He brushed aside as untrue long held claims by mining activists that mining companies were just paying 3 per cent in royalty, thus ending up pocketing a whopping 97 per cent.

``This is not true because the 3 per cent royalty is deducted from gross profit from which other taxes are also taken away, so it was impossible for them to pay corporate taxes unless they start generating profits``, said Kafumu.

Mining Act of 1998 which became effective August in the following year is said to be one of the most generous pieces of mining legislations in Africa, some of whose provisions and related concessions had to be renegotiate by the incumbent administration in the face of public outcry.

Two Canadian companies, Barrick Gold Corporation and Tanzania Royalty Exploration (TRE) Corporation, control over 50 percent of Tanzania's gold projects.

Barrick owns three of the seven major gold mining projects in Tanzania; TRE controls over 60 percent of the mining rights in the mineral rich area of Lake Victoria.

These and other foreign corporations have made windfall profits out of the more than USD2 billion earned in gold exports in the past decade when tax exemptions were de rigueur.

According to mining experts, the country has about one billion ounces of gold yet to be exploited.

At present, only four percent of Tanzania`s gold potential is being exploited despite the country being Africa's third largest producer.