Maya Forstater

Which is why I don’t think its all that useful a question – because it turns the answer that the Transfer Pricing Deity is 100% certain that the company is shifting 60% of its profits away into the statement that there is 4% chance that any given loss year is not a real loss year

(.... obviously these calculations will change if we change the commodity price for the OT model, or if we look at a different mine with different costs of production....) (/9)

What I think it shows is that the intuition that loss years are a good indicator sign of profit shifting does not hold up (although as @hselftax says several years of losses demand explanation) (10/10)

Great answer! So counting binaries misses ways of deflating profits whilst holding the pattern of 0 or 1s over the years fixed. I'm totally convinced counting false or true loss years is a poor measure and I hadn't thought of that, so thanks

However, the tweet I initially responded to said (something like) 'I agree that when a mine reports a loss it's not always fake' so the question how often fake remains, even if a poor way of assessing the overall extent of profit shifting, as you have explained.

And I still think responses to the question reveal prior beliefs about prevalence of chicanery. And I think people should state their priors. The poll has probably closed otherwise I'd still ask you to respond!

Actually this piece by @gchelwa on a current case in Zambia may be of interest to this convo: http://gchelwa.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-zra-first-quantum-tax-story.html …

Interesting thread! To go back to initial tweet on DRc mining code, @NRGInstitute we ran the number through a FARI-type model, available with the analysis here: https://resourcegovernance.org/analysis-tools/publications/sortir-de-l%E2%80%99impasse-fiscale-comment-sauver-la-r%C3%A9forme-du-code-minier-en …