Maldives is ranked number one in a list of 178 countries ranked by the World Bank in its list ‘who makes paying taxes easy and who does not’. We have even beaten Singapore (number 2 on the list).
It also says that “the Maldives levies only one small tax on domestic business in the manufacturing sector (the property transfer tax) and only hotels and banks are taxed on their profits.”
In spite of my innate patriotic urge to take pride in World Bank’s conclusions, I have serious reservations as to the accuracy of the World Bank’s assessment and the veracity of the statement above. I think our small country has one of the most ambiguous and haphazard tax regimes anywhere in the world (correct me if I’m wrong). Have a look at MEDT’s Royalty charges on foreign investments and see if you could make any sense out of it. To me this is clearly an attempt to drape a grim reality with misleading nomenclature – a royalty = a tax? Of course NO! If it was, we wouldn’t be telling the world that we have zero corporate profit taxes (with the exception of the banks, of course).
Regarding the World Banks’ statement above on profit taxes, I don’t know of any hotel in the Maldives that is taxed on its profit (again, correct me if I’m wrong).
Incidentally, not too long ago, we were on an OECD’s list of uncooperative tax jurisdictions. But OECD subsequently removed us from their list without us having to do anything to our tax regime. Thanks to yet another important act that we as a nation have perfected during the last couple of years – the art of hoodwinking the white men!
1 comment:
I donn feel its a good thing.. i think governments should be rich and powerful. and this is what the IMF or WB or any other UN body doesnot want to happen. so, they can bend the rules and make the poor countries beg down on their knees for help. now, thats the form of international slavery.
they are governments to cut on how much they get as well as how much they spend... and not to have a huge workforce. particularly small countries like us, jus cannot afford to do so.... to be an open economy...
europe or america at first place, was even very protections during its early stages of development. all countries do need to have protectionist measures.
maldives do generate a lot of money. but neither the government nor the people get their fair share.ever
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