How greedy tax laws become a gift to other countries

Before coming to India and Mauritius, let me talk about US and the Dutch Antilles in the early 1980s. It took the US two decades to change their tax laws and stop the free gift they were giving to the Antilles. If we assume India acts with similar speed, it is around time we changed our tax laws because our generosity to Mauritius has been going on since the mid 1990s.

There is a vast literature about the US and the Netherlands Antilles. The description below is based on an old paper by Marilyn Doskey Franson (“Repeal of the Thirty Percent Withholding Tax on Portfolio Interest Paid to Foreign Investors”, Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business, Fall 1984, 930-978). Since this paper was written immediately after the change in US tax laws, it provides a good account of the different kinds of pulls and pressures that led to this outcome. Prior to 1984, passive income from investments in United States assets such as interest and dividends earned by foreigners was generally subject to a flat thiry percent tax which was withheld at the source of payment. Franson describes the Netherlands Antilles solution that was adopted by US companies to avoid this tax while borrowing in foreign markets:

In an effort to reduce the interest rates they were paying on debt, corporations began as early as the 1960s to access an alternative supply of investment funds by offering their debentures to foreign investors in the Eurobond market. The imposition of the thirty percent withholding tax on interest paid to these investors, however, initially made this an unattractive mode of financing. Since foreign investors could invest in the debt obligations of governments and businesses of other countries without the payment of such taxes, a United States offeror would have had to increase the yield of its obligation by forty-three percent in order to compensate the investor for the thirty percent United States withholding tax and to compete with other issuers. This prospect was totally unacceptable to most United States issuers.

In an effort to overcome these barriers, corporations began to issue their obligations to foreign investors through foreign “finance subsidiaries” located in a country with which the United States had a treaty exempting interest payments. Corporations generally chose the Netherlands Antilles as the site for incorporation of the finance subsidiary because of the favorable terms of the United States – Kingdom of the Netherlands Income Tax Convention ... The Antillean finance subsidiary would issue its own obligations in the Eurobond market, with the United States parent guaranteeing the bonds. Proceeds of the offering were then reloaned to the United States parent on the same terms as the Eurobond issue, but at one percent over the rate to be paid on the Eurobonds. Payments of interest and principal could, through the use of the U.S.-N.A. treaty, pass tax-free from the United States parent to the Antillean finance subsidiary; interest and principal paid to the foreign investor were also tax-free. The Antillean finance subsidiary would realize net income for the one percent interest differential, on which the Antillean government imposed a tax of about thirty percent. However, the United States parent was allowed an offsetting credit on its corporate income tax return for these taxes paid to the Antillean government. Indirectly, this credit resulted in a transfer of tax revenues from the United States Treasury to that of the Antillean government. (emphasis added)

The use of the Antillean route was so extensive that in the early 1980s, almost one-third of the total portfolio interest paid by US residents was paid through the Netherlands Antilles. (Franson, page 937, footnote 30). There was a lot of pressure on the US government to renegotiate the Antillean tax treaty to close this “loophole”. However, this was unattractive because of the adverse consequences of all existing Eurobonds being redeemed. This is very similar to the difficulties that India has in closing the Mauritius loophole. Just as in India, the tax department in the US too kept on questioning the validity of the Antillean solution on the ground “that while the Eurobond obligations were, in form, those of the finance subsidiary, that in substance, they were obligations of the domestic parent and, thus, subject to the thirty percent withholding tax.” (Franson, page 939).

Matters came to a head in 1984 when the US Congress began discussing amendments to the tax laws “that would have eliminated the foreign tax credit taken by the United States parent for taxes paid by the finance subsidiary to the Netherlands Antilles.” (Franson, page 939). The US Treasury was worried about the implications of closing down the Eurobond funding mechanism and proposed a complete repeal of the 30% withholding tax on portfolio interest. This repeal was enacted in 1984. Since then portfolio investors are not taxed on their US interest income at all. Similar benefits apply to portfolio investors in US equities as well. This tax regime has not only stopped the gift that the US government was giving to the Antilles, but it has also contributed to a vibrant capital market in the US.

It is interesting to note a parallel with the Participatory Note controversy in India: “The Eurobond market is largely composed of bearer obligations because of foreigners’ demand for anonymity. Throughout the congressional hearings on the repeal legislation, concerns were voiced over the possibility of increased tax evasion by United States citizens through the use of such bearer obligations.” (Franson, page 949).

It is perhaps not too much to hope that two decades after opening up the Indian market to foreign portfolio investors in the mid 1990s, India too could adopt a sensible tax regime for them. The whole world has moved to a model of zero or near zero withholding taxes on portfolio investors. Since capital is mobile, it is impossible to tax foreign portfolio investors without either driving them away or increasing the cost of capital to Indian companies prohibitively. It is thus impossible to close the Mauritius loophole just as it was impossible for the US to close the Antilles loophole without first removing the taxation of portfolio investors. The Mauritius loophole is a gift to that country because of the jobs and incomes that are created in that country solely to make an investment in India. Every shell company in Mauritius provides jobs to accountants, lawyers, nominee directors and the like. As the tax laws are tightened to require a genuine business establishment in Mauritius, even more income is generated in Mauritius through rental income and new jobs. All this is a free gift to Mauritius provided by greedy tax laws in India. It can be eliminated if we exempt portfolio income from taxation.

On the other hand, non portfolio investment is intimately linked to a business in India and must necessarily be subject to normal Indian taxes. In the US, the portfolio income exemption does not apply to a foreigner who owns 10% or more of the company which paid the interest or dividend, and India should also do something similar. The Mauritius loophole currently benefits non portfolio investors as well, and this is clearly unacceptable. Making portfolio investment tax free will enable renegotiation of the Mauritius tax treaty to plug this loophole.

Posted at 5:35 pm IST on Thu, 27 Aug 2015         permanent link

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