JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed lithium and gold exploration company Birimian has settled with the Australian Tax Office (ATO), which waived all penalties in relation to tax obligations after the Mali-focused company made voluntary disclosures of all its financial statements since August.

The penalties were in relation to taxation obligations arising from past payments made to former directors of Birimian, and also not meeting obligations to pay withholding tax and value-added tax in Mali and in Australia.

The potential tax, interest and penalty obligations in Australia and Mali was $2.134-million, which included $1.678-million in relation to Australian tax matters the ATO was entitled to impose under the tax legislation.

On Thursday, Birimian said that the Australian federal tax matters had been resolved and that no payment was required to be made to the ATO.

Birimian advised in January that it had lodged financial statements and tax returns for 2011 to 2016 for each of its three subsidiaries with the Malian Tax Authorities (MTA) and paid a total of $404 000 in outstanding taxes owed by the subsidiaries for this period.

“Birimian is pleased to have resolved this matter with the ATO. The company now has resolved almost all outstanding tax matters in Australia and Mali, with only the Western Australia payroll tax issue to be resolved, which is not material,” Birimian CEO and executive director Greg Walker said in the statement.

“While provision was made for $2.1-million to settle all outstanding tax, interest and penalty payments, total expenditure to-date has amounted to $404 000, which is an extremely good outcome for the company. Accordingly, the provision will be substantially reversed,” he added.

In August 2017, Birimian announced that a review undertaken internally by the board of directors, with the assistance of PricewaterhouseCoopers, had revealed significant instances of prior non-compliance with tax obligations in Australia and Mali, including not meeting pay-as-you-go obligations on amounts paid to employees, not making certain superannuation payments by the due date, lodging business activity statements, in respect of goods and services tax obligations in which amounts were incorrectly claimed as input credits, not meeting the reporting requirements for employee share schemes and incorrectly calculating payroll tax liability in Western Australia.