Another example is the world’s second largest brewery,
South African Breweries Miller (SAB Miller). Even
though it is able to expand rapidly and has affiliates in
manycountries around the world, particularly in Africa,
it had reported little or no taxes in many of the affiliates’
host countries. The reason for this, as research
by ActionAid (2010) has shown, is a worldwide net of
tax haven affiliates through which all profits are being
channelled (Figure 2). Amongst others, there are
affiliates in the Netherlands and Switzerland that take
management fees, there is another affiliate in the Netherlands
that takes royalties for using brands, and there
is an affiliate in Mauritius that is responsible for the procurement
of goods. While there may be other reasons
than taxes – such as centralised services, etc. – the effect
of this tax haven net appears to be a huge tax gap
for many countries where SAB Miller operates. To investigate
this gap, several African governments started
an investigation into SAB Miller’s tax planning, which
is ongoing.