Mauritius Compliant with EU Tax Good Governance Principles
Further to the results of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (“OECD”) peer-review earlier this year, which determined that there were no harmful tax practices in Mauritius, Mauritius has now received further validation of its efforts to adopt international best practices in terms of taxation. The Economic and Financial Affairs Council of the European Union (“EU”) has, on the 10th October 2019, announced that Mauritius was compliant with the EU’s tax good governance principles. The EU also announced that Mauritius has implemented ahead of its deadline all necessary reforms to comply with the EU’s tax good governance principles.
These positive reports from the OECD and the EU stem from efforts made by the country over the years to implement tax good governance principles, such as the signing of the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement for the automatic exchange of information, the introduction of CFC rules, the phased abolishment of the previous ‘Deemed Foreign Tax Credit’ regime and the introduction of the new partial exemption regime and its accompanying substance requirements (our previous articles on the Finance Act 2019 and the updated substance requirements are available here).
This latest positive news gives even more credence to Mauritius’ claim as a world-class IFC, and in the words of the Chief Executive of the Financial Services Commission Mr. Harvesh Seegoolam, “comes at an opportune time as we look forward to the next level of development”.