{"id":12758,"date":"2022-04-01T08:04:03","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T08:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image"},"modified":"2022-04-01T12:21:50","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T12:21:50","slug":"mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image","title":{"rendered":"Mauritius aims to shed \u2018tax haven\u2019 image"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. <\/strong><\/span>For three decades, Mauritius positioned itself as the low-tax jurisdiction of choice for international businesses investing in Africa and Asia \u2014 particularly, India. In the past five years, however, there has been an overhaul of the island nation\u2019s tax laws.<\/p>\n

Sensitive to pressure from international regulators demanding greater scrutiny of offshore centres, Mauritius has dropped several elements of its previous tax system. Indeed, the country has worked to overturn its image as a tax haven.<\/p>\n

In October, it backed an international agreement to introduce a global minimum effective corporate tax rate and force multinationals to declare profits and pay more tax in the countries where they carry out business.<\/p>\n

Mauritius\u2019 efforts to reinvent itself have been boosted by other measures, too. In October, the Financial Action Task Force, the global money laundering watchdog, removed the island from its list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring.<\/p>\n

In January, the EU similarly took Mauritius off its list of countries needing close monitoring for money laundering and terrorism financing. According to official Indian data, there has also been a substantial drop in inflows of foreign direct investment to India from Mauritius since a change to a double-tax treaty between the two countries, in 2017.<\/p>\n

Tax advisers in Mauritius corroborate the data. That treaty allowed Mauritius-based companies to avoid paying Indian capital gains tax when they sold Indian assets.<\/p>\n

It led to a boom in multinationals seeking to enter the Indian market, routing funds via Mauritius. But, having been top of the list of countries making FDI into India, in 2020-21 Mauritius dropped to third, after Singapore and the US.<\/p>\n

Its inflows fell nearly 32 per cent to $5.6bn, compared with $8.2bn in 2019-2020. Some have expressed concern that, without some of these low-tax attractions, businesses will leave Mauritius. However, others are more sanguine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a flight\u201d of some businesses, says Caoilfhionn van der Walt, managing partner of Regan van Rooy, an Africa-focused international tax and financial planning company, with offices in Mauritius and South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s the kind of business that Mauritius doesn\u2019t want anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201d She believes the government has calculated that the departure of such businesses is \u201cnot really a loss to Mauritius\u201d, as they were not creating jobs or paying tax.<\/p>\n

Fazeel Soyfoo, partner at accountants Andersen in Mauritius, is of the opinion that \u201cthere hasn\u2019t been an exodus by any means. \u201d The country\u2019s tax system retains plus points, such as being relatively simple to understand and having no withholding or capital-gains taxes.<\/p>\n

Mauritius\u2019 headline corporate tax rate of 15 per cent is also low compared with most other African countries. They typically have rates of between 25 and 35 per cent.<\/p>\n

And its network of double-tax avoidance treaties with 45 countries \u2014 to stop a company or individual having to pay tax in two places, if both countries have a claim to the income \u2014 means multinationals often use the country as a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for investing across Africa, adds Robert Mwanyumba, Africa regional advocacy co-ordinator at anti-corruption campaigning group Transparency International.<\/p>\n

The appeal of Mauritius to business will remain, Mwanyumba says. However, while welcoming its tax reforms, he remains sceptical about its level of transparency.<\/p>\n

Mauritius\u2019 efforts, he suggests, have been mostly a \u201ccheck box exercise\u201d to get back into the international good books. \u201cMauritius has strategically positioned itself to do what it needs to do,\u201d says Mwanyumba, \u201cto continue with the status quo\u201d<\/p>\n

Even the international tax deal \u2014 agreed last year and backed by Mauritius \u2014 that seeks to curtail low-tax jurisdictions, is unlikely to affect substantially Mauritius\u2019 attractiveness, says Alexander Ezenagu, an assistant professor specialising in international tax law, with a focus on the developing world, at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Mauritius will remain a tax haven and will still be attractive,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The annual turnover thresholds at which the global tax agreement starts targeting businesses \u2014 from \u20ac750mn \u2014 are too high to affect most businesses operating in, or via, Mauritius, and so will have \u201clittle impact\u201d, he predicts.<\/p>\n

Soyfoo agrees that the vast majority of businesses operating in Mauritius will not be affected. Overall, he thinks that \u2014 although \u201cthe Mauritian government cannot afford to rest on their laurels\u201d \u2014 the recent reforms will attract more businesses to the island.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact is, Mauritius is a jurisdiction of substance.<\/p>\n

\u201d He reports that most of his clients have remained, despite the loss of any previous tax benefits, because of other advantages the country offers.<\/p>\n

These include a strong banking infrastructure, currency flexibility, lack of exchange controls and the island\u2019s well-educated population fluent in English and French.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Mauritius<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. For three decades, Mauritius positioned itself as the low-tax jurisdiction of choice for international businesses investing in Africa and Asia \u2014 particularly, India. In the past five years, however, there has been an overhaul of the island nation\u2019s tax laws. Sensitive to pressure from international regulators demanding greater scrutiny of offshore centres, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":12757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,7,8,16],"tags":[233,245,1363,241],"class_list":["post-12758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-mauritius","tag-businesses","tag-mauritius"],"yoast_head":"\nMauritius aims to shed \u2018tax haven\u2019 image - Mauritius<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For three decades, Mauritius positioned itself as the low-tax jurisdiction of choice for international businesses invest ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mauritius aims to shed \u2018tax haven\u2019 image\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For three decades, Mauritius positioned itself as the low-tax jurisdiction of choice for international businesses invest ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mauritius\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-04-01T08:04:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-04-01T12:21:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/sites\/61\/2022\/04\/img-6246ee3f4275c.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"510\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"285\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Mauritius aims to shed \u2018tax haven\u2019 image\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-04-01T08:04:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-04-01T12:21:50+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image\"},\"wordCount\":778,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/sites\/61\/2022\/04\/img-6246ee3f4275c.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Mauritius\",\"businesses\",\"Mauritius\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\",\"head lines\",\"homepage-english\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/mauritius-aims-to-shed-tax-haven-image\",\"name\":\"Mauritius aims to shed \u2018tax haven\u2019 image - 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