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While Mauritius is ranked as the fastest growing financial centre in Africa and the second-fastest-growing offshore financial centre (OFC) in the word by the New World Health in 2019, the country is facing severe allegations that it is progressing at the expense of other developing countries. In this respect, this paper aims to assess the contribution of the Mauritius OFC, the robustness of tax avoidance and evasion laws, the endeavours undertaken by the Mauritius Government to promote Mauritius OFC and the alleged classification of Mauritius as a tax haven.

To achieve the above research objectives, this paper will adopt the black letter approach. That is, the relevant legislation and case laws will be scrutinised. Also, books, journal articles, newspaper articles, reports from international bodies amongst others will be used. The research methodology also comprising a critical analysis which implies that existing studies conducted on the subject matter of this research will be assessed and the extent to which the researcher agrees with the existing work will be weighed.

Based on the critical analysis, this paper recommends that the Mauritius Income Tax Act be amended to provide for punitive and corrective actions for those engaged in impermissible tax avoidance. Additionally, for transparency and clarity, it is suggested that the Mauritius Revenue Authority (MRA) clarifies in a practice note the factors that it considers when determining the tax liability that should have been payable or when detecting tax avoidance cases. Similarly, to discourage tax evasion, the fines and penalties for tax-evading offences should be more strict and a regulatory framework for tax practitioners need to be set up.

To the author’s knowledge, this paper is amongst the first academic research that emphasises the position of Mauritius as an OFC and critically analysed the related laws relating to the financial world.

The phenomenal proliferation of crowdfunding platforms raises concerns on the heightened occurrence of financial crimes since billions of funds are exchanged through these online systems frequently. Accordingly, some countries have implemented legislative responses to address these risks, although each countries’ laws have varying degrees of severity. Hence, the purpose of this study is to assess the efficiency and robustness of Mauritian laws to combat financial crimes that may arise from a crowdfunding transaction with a particular emphasis on money laundering and tax evasion.

To achieve this research objective, the black letter approach was used to analyse Mauritian rules and regulations on the researched topic and a comparative analysis was carried out against the corresponding laws on crowdfunding in some other jurisdictions, notably the UK and the USA with the view of suggesting the policy recommendations to Mauritian authorities.

It was found that there is still scope for improving the existing legal and regulatory framework on crowdfunding in Mauritius to prevent instances of money laundering and tax evasion. The paper suggests that a crowdfunding operator must be categorised as a reporting person and must carry out regular due diligence checks. There must also be more collaboration in terms of information exchanges and training sessions among the tax authority of Mauritius, crowdfunding operators, fund seekers and investors to shed light on the tax treatment of income and deductions to avoid issues of tax evasion.

At present, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is amongst the first academic writings on the efficiency of Mauritian laws in dealing with the risk of financial crimes through crowdfunding, and also, because existing literature is quite scarce on assessing the adequacy of crowdfunding rules in developing countries, this research aims at filling in the gap in literature. The study is carried out with the aim of combining a large amount of empirical, theoretical and factual information that can be of use to various stakeholders and not only to academics.

One of the most common forms of international tax avoidance is transfer pricing by multinational enterprises. The research will investigate on the factors that contribute to transfer pricing abuses. At present, there is no substantial and extensive transfer pricing rule in Mauritius. This paper aims to analyse the legal approaches to tackle transfer pricing issues that are undertaken by some countries whose taxation regime is similar to Mauritius. The selected countries are South Africa and UK. The objective behind the comparative study is to come up with the appropriate preventive and corrective measures for Mauritius.

The methodology adopted for this research consists of a critical analysis and comparative legal review of the relevant legislation, case law and literature. A minor quantitative analysis of the transfer pricing problem in Mauritius will be conducted, in terms of which interviews will be conducted with officials from different institutions in Mauritius.

The study will conclude that the absence of explicit formal rules on transfer pricing allows businesses to use the country to manipulate transfer prices to avoid paying taxes. Therefore, an amendment to Mauritius laws and regulatory framework is required to dissuade multinationals to engage in transfer pricing abuses. The study will conclude that the scope and application of the arm’s length principle needs to be formally set out in legislation and also, the use of Advance Pricing Agreements will also be recommended.

The research is among the first studies that compare Mauritius legal provisions on transfer pricing with that of South Africa and UK. The research is unique as it intends to provide fruitful recommendation to stakeholders in Mauritius to enhance the existing legal framework on the subject.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Double Irish and Dutch Sandwich (DIDS) tax schemes used by international companies. Companies using these schemes are enabled to transfer a large amount of their profits to offshore tax havens by using wholly owned subsidiaries located in Ireland and the Netherlands. This paper also analyzes the US General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR) to see whether it can effectively detect and counteract this scheme. This analysis is furthermore enhanced by applying the Mauritian GAAR through Section 90 of the Income Tax Act to the said schemes.

Concerning research methods, the library and the internet will be the main sources of information to be used for this paper. Through the usage of library research, the Mauritian Income Tax Act, US GAAR, European Commission decisions and scholar writings will further enhance this paper on the structure and preventive actions that can be taken against the DIDS scheme. This paper will also use a case study coupled with a theoretical analysis of current anti-avoidance rules.

The paper then concludes that it is possible to counteract the schemes using the Mauritian law but under specific circumstances. It is then revealed that there is a fundamental flaw in the current tax systems, which is the inability to regulate the intangible nature of resources and technology-based transactions.

To the author's knowledge, this paper is among the first literature on the subject of DIDS strategies conducted in the context of Mauritius.

The mobilising domestic resources, in particular, taxation, is key to unlocking the resources required for public investment in infrastructure, growth and sustainable finance. This study aims to share the perception that the tax arrangements of states and the transnational corporations (TNCs) of developed states have a critical effect on the development prospects of the less powerful states in developing countries.

This paper locates the role of TNCs tax practice within the broader dynamics of globalisation and the pursuit of profits, to argue that the drive of TNCs for higher profits can enrich our understanding of why some TNCs engage in tax dodging. This paper used publicly available evidence to shed light on the role played by TNCs in tax dodging practices in developing countries.

The evidence shows that tax havens and offshore financial centres, shaped by globalisation, are major structures facilitating the sophisticated tax schemes of highly mobile TNCs. This paper further shows that the corrosive effect of low-tax jurisdictions (“tax havens”) continues to represent a major obstacle to a regulation of global economic relations, which is required for maintaining sustainable social and economic development of poorer states.

This paper used publicly available evidence to illuminate the role played by TNCs in tax dodging practices in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper, therefore, advocates a radical reform that could minimise the attendant problems created by the activities of TNCs and the enabling structures that facilitate these practices.

Tax dodging has played a major role in causing serious damage to the economic and social landscape in developing countries. This in turn, has undermined social welfare and also investment in the public services, thereby eroding the quality of life and producing a decline in average life expectancy.

This paper is a general review of literature and evidence on contemporary developmental issues.

A taxpayer who gets caught under Part VII of the Mauritius Income Tax Act is subjected to a corrective measure only in the form of payment of the amount of tax that would have been due in the absence of the avoidance arrangement, but the consequences set out in the same section do not result in any disincentive to the taxpayer that would ensure the prevention of the occurrence of such type of anti-avoidance practices in the future. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of the anti-avoidance provisions in the Mauritius legislation as a weapon against impermissible tax avoidance, and the study also intends to critically analyse the remedies available against taxpayers who enter into impermissible tax avoidance transactions.

The methodology adopted for this qualitative study consists of a critical analysis and comparative legal review of the relevant legislation, case laws and literature. The anti-avoidance provisions of the Mauritius legislation will be compared with similar provisions of legislations of countries that have rigid preventive rules for anti-avoidance practices, and the selected countries are the UK and Australia because each country has been successful in diminishing the tax avoidances practices further to the imposition of penalties for impermissible tax avoidance. The black letter approach will also be used through which existing legal provisions, judicial doctrines, scholar articles and budget speeches governing anti-avoidance provisions for each country identified will be analysed.

Further to an analysis of the substantial differences between Mauritius anti-avoidance legal provisions and those of the UK and Australia, it is found that the backing of corrective actions by penalties act as a disincentive to prohibit impermissible anti-avoidance practices. The study concludes that, where there is abuse of law, the law needs to provide for penalties that must be suffered by the abuser, and hence, the study calls for an amendment in the Mauritius Income Tax Act to strengthen anti-avoidance provisions, by adopting similar provisions of the laws of Australia and the UK.

At present, there is no Mauritius literature on the researched topic, and this study will be one of the first academic writings on the subject of penalties for impermissible tax avoidance in Mauritius. The study is a new and unique topic in Mauritius, and for that reason, the study will largely rely on foreign sources that deal with penalties for impermissible tax avoidance, and this will include the Australian Taxation Administrative Act 1953, Australian case laws and the UK Finance Act 2016. This study is being carried out with the view to provide insightful recommendations to the stakeholders concerned in Mauritius to enhance the revenue collection avenues and methodologies for the Mauritius revenue authorities.

The corporate veil or veil of incorporation is a legal concept that separates the legal and juristic personality of a company from its members, directors and other stakeholders. Indeed, common law has provided for numerous circumstances in which the corporate veil of a company may be lifted, and courts rely on these case law precedents to determine the grounds for lifting the corporate veil. However, there is limited case law regarding environmental torts as a ground for lifting the veil of incorporation and there is no legal provision in Mauritius which recognises environmental crimes as an exception to corporate veil. Consequently, this paper aims to discuss the liability of decision-makers of a company in the case of corporate environmental wrongdoings and thereafter, to present a case for amending Mauritius laws to give recognition to environmental torts as a ground of lifting the corporate veil.

This paper has adopted the black-letter approach and the comparative research methodology. The laws of Mauritius on corporate veil will be compared to the related laws of the USA and Canada with the view of seeking recommendations for Mauritius, as these countries are known to have an extensive legal framework on environmental crimes as a ground to lift the corporate veil.

It is concluded that it is high time for Mauritius to adopt a separate manslaughter law that would incorporate crimes committed to the environment by corporate bodies as a ground for lifting the corporate veil and thereby attacking individual stakeholders concerned.

This study is among the first researches conducted in the field of environmental torts as a ground for lifting the corporate veil in Mauritius.

This study aims to analyze tax revenue in the presence of double tax treaties affecting social welfare of the inhabitants in the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) developing economies, whose fiscal regimes are being branded as responsible for exacerbating poverty for the inhabitants. This paper seeks to determine if double tax treaties are negatively impacting on human development of the host countries.

This study analyses 21 SSA countries from 1996 to 2016 using panel models and bootstrapped quantile regression. It uses a devised mathematical model which introduces the interaction between tax revenue and double tax treaties and measures the social welfare impact using the human development index (HDI).

The findings have broadly shown that (i) the net effect from the complementarity between tax revenue and double tax treaty (DTTs) in influencing the human development is for the most part negative (ii) the impact of tax revenue from international trade has the most positive net effect as compared to other tax revenues when interacted with the DTT and (iii) the DTT complements the tax revenue from income, profits and capital gains to progressively increase human development in the upper quartiles of HDI.

This study has examined how the presence of double tax treaties has impacted the effect of tax revenue on human development in 21 SSA countries for the period 1996–2016. A mathematical model was devised and bootstrapped quantile regression was used owing to the specificities of the sample. In accordance with recent literature on net effects, the results were interpreted.

It is evident that further research is required on whether double tax treaties are indirectly responsible for poverty on the rise in SSA countries or on the contrary, they bring FDI alongside with other positive spillovers which in the end contribute to a rise in the human development aspect of societies in developing host economies.

The HDI is an important measure used nowadays for human development as a proxy for social welfare. This research will use an HDI mathematical model devised by Sinha and Sengupta (2019) and adapt it to the context to testing econometrically whether double tax treaties have an impact on welfare or poverty reduction. The empirical results will help determine whether tax treaties are impacting the social welfare positively or negatively.

This result is the first research attempt to consider both the impact of tax revenue (which is expected to have a positive impact on social welfare of the people of the host developing countries) and the impact of double tax treaties simultaneously. It is the first empirical study focusing on the impact of tax revenue on human development in the presence of double tax treaties. Its methodology is original and adds to the current literature to benefit policymakers and academia.

The purpose of this research paper is to underscore that harmonization of laws, much as it might not offer a lasting cure of tax avoidance and other forms of financial crimes, can enhance the fight against it and subsequently help to forestall it. Tax avoidance has remained an intractable challenge and costs governments astronomical sums of money, largely because taxation is a sensitive issue in the realm of sovereign national jurisdictions. The first part of this paper involves a review of empirical data on tax avoidance to create a context for evaluating theoretical issues on tax avoidance and how they are manifested in practice. It draws examples in a cross-jurisdictional perspective given the global character of tax avoidance and evasion as financial crimes. The last part of this paper discusses possible recommendations that could be implemented to tackle tax avoidance and its attendant challenges on economies.

The author has carried out a scoping review of the literature on tax avoidance and myriad of ways used to commit it globally. There was a wealth of data on tax avoidance, evasion, money laundering and harmonization of laws, which was reviewed and applied in undertaking this study. These data were sourced from published academic books, journal articles and online data sources/websites. This paper reflects on and internalizes most recent empirical data on tax avoidance and evasion such as unprecedented leak of millions of files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca – the so-called “Panama papers”, which has revealed the extent of tax avoidance globally. It also goes an extra length (literally speaking) to underscore important measures that ought to be introduced to address tax avoidance, evasion and money laundering once and for all.

The findings of this paper confirm that while harmonization of law has its inherent shortcomings, it is necessary to enhance individual state’s ability to deal with overlapping interstate challenges such as tax avoidance. This paper proffers a thorough analysis of tax avoidance, the varied context in which it is manifested with a view to evaluate measures that could be adopted by states to minimize or forestall it globally.

This paper has used data on tax avoidance and cognate areas in underscoring inherent challenges in current measures against tax avoidance globally. There were not many studies carried out on the role of harmonization in bolstering states’ efforts against tax avoidance and other financial crimes.

Paying taxes or avoiding paying it has a direct bearing on people, societies and national governments. It is therefore important that states adopt measures to curtail tax avoidance – because it costs governments a lot of revenue.

Though studies have been conducted on tax avoidance and cognate areas, this paper articulates that harmonization could greatly enhance the fight against it globally. This paper will appeal to tax authorities, banks, governments, policy makers, oversight financial institutions and those who have a vested interest in regulation of financial crimes globally.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the quality of management schools and tax evasion and tests whether the strength of auditing and reporting standards moderates such a relationship.

Tax evasion is measured using the macro-indirect approach based on Schneider, Buehn and Monterngro (2010). The quality of management schools is collected from The Global Competitiveness Report for 2014-2015.

On the basis of sample of 137 countries, the authors document that the level of tax evasion is negatively associated with the quality of management schools and the strength of auditing and reporting standards. When the authors distinguish between low- and high-strength of auditing and reporting standards countries, the authors find that the negative and significant association remains stable only for high-strength of auditing and reporting standards countries.

These results imply that the quality of management schools through its output (managers, fiscal controllers, auditors and businessmen) may increase the tendency of individuals in a given country to comply with tax rules and that legal enforcement may affect the ethical behaviours of these actors with regard to tax evasion.

The empirical findings have policy implications for governments with high levels of tax evasion since they highlight the importance of the quality of higher educational system in shaping tax compliance behaviour.