Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Is Mauritius like Sweden or Bangladesh?

By 46 Comments

20090409-religion-world

While browsing today, I came up across this Gallup survey done in February on the importance of religion in different countries all over the world:

The countries where people give a lot of importance to religion are: Egypt, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Congo, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Senegal, Djibouti, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. Notice that most of them are countries where a lot of people are poor (and some people are extremely rich.)

Countries where people generally do not give a lot of importance to religion are: Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Czech Republic, Azerbaijan, Hong Kong, Japan, France, Mongolia, Belarus.

Apart from Mongolia (?!?), these countries can be separated into two groups:

  • ex-USSR countries like Estonia, the Czech Republic, Azerbaijan and Belarus where religion was suppressed by the state and
  • countries like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hong Kong, Japan and France.

 

Now, I don’t want to jump to conclusions but it seems to me that  Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hong Kong, Japan and France are countries which are rich, fairly democratic and which have a good (and, for some of them, excellent) education system. Does this imply that educated people tend to give less importance to religion? And, more interestingly, does this mean that atheists (those without a belief in any God) generally have a high level of education? Yes, it would seem.

And what about Mauritius? People give a lot of importance to religion in our country (especially if they need to be elected and/or they have problems.) And the Minister of Education said our education system has failed to deliver. Is there a correlation between the two?

By the way, I’m an atheist.

Is Mauritius a tax haven?

By 35 Comments

20090402-paradis-fiscal

According to The Economist,

What identifies an area as a tax haven (paradis fiscal) is the existence of a composite tax structure established deliberately to take advantage of, and exploit, a worldwide demand for opportunities to engage in tax avoidance.

In Mauritius, law allows for the creation of companies with a Category 2 Global Business Licence. Those companies share the following characteristics (as confirmed in this official document from the Financial Services Commission):

  • Not resident for tax purposes (i.e. those companies do not pay any tax on their profits to the Mauritius Government)
  • Audited financial statements need not be filed (Why? I do not understand why the nascent Knowledge Seven Ltd will have to file one at the end of the financial year whereas a companies with potentially billions of dollars of profit won’t.)
  • Records are not available to the public (Why? Are they dealing in anything, ahem, controversial?)
  • Business with residents is not possible
  • etc.

 

Google currently returns 44,900 pages when searching for the phrase “Category 2 Global Business Licence Mauritius” which shows that a lot of people are really keen about Category 2 Global Business Licences in Mauritius…

Two days ago, Eco89, which is a spinoff of Rue89, which describes itself as a “Site d’information et de débat sur l’actualité, indépendant et participatif”, published an articled entitled Maurice, Singapour, Delaware : ma planète off-shore en 3 clics. The article explicitly says that Mauritius is a tax haven because the Category 2 Global Business Licence allows companies from developed countries to evade tax in their own country by setting up their headquarters in Mauritius. The article even mentions that “le nom du propriétaire n’est pas révélé aux autorités” which is something I find very dangerous. Who knows what kind of people own companies in our country?

Yesterday, the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy said during an interview in Le Figaro:

Il existe un paradis fiscal dont le PIB est de 2 milliards de dollars et dont les institutions financières hébergées en son sein ont garanti 1.800 milliards de dollars.

Il serait inacceptable que des décisions concrètes ne soient pas mises en Å“uvre concernant les paradis fiscaux dans les jours qui viennent. Nous voulons un capitalisme d’entrepreneurs et pas un capitalisme de spéculateurs. 62% des hedge funds sont logés dans les paradis fiscaux.

Reading these articles as well as the official documents from the Government of Mauritius, I can’t prevent myself feeling very concerned. Is Sarkozy talking of Mauritius? Has Mauritius really become a tax haven? And, more importantly, à qui profite le crime if this is true?

Liverpool in blue and to be sponsored by AIG

By 23 Comments

20090401-gerrard-aig

STOP PRESS!

Liverpool Football Club has just announced that, as from the next match against Fulham, the Liverpool players will wear blue outfits (as too many people mistook them with players from a somewhat less successful club operating in the same country) and will be proudly sponsored by American International Group, Inc. (AIG)

Steven Gerrard, the captain, says: “I am delighted. Blue is easier to wash. And AIG is easier to spell.”