Treasure Island: Leak Reveals How Mauritius Siphons Tax From Poor Nations to Benefit Elites

Mauritius Leaks, a new investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and 54 journalists from 18 countries, provides an inside look at how the former French colony has transformed itself into a thriving financial center, at least partly at the expense of its African neighbors and other less-developed countries.  In Uganda, more than 40% of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

Based on a cache of 200,000 confidential records from the Mauritius office of the Bermuda-based offshore law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman, the investigation reveals how a sophisticated financial system based on the island is designed to divert tax revenue from poor nations back to the coffers of Western corporations and African oligarchs, with Mauritius getting a share.  The files date from the early 1990s to 2017.

The island, which sells itself as a “gateway” for corporations to the developing world, has 2 main selling points: 1st - bargain-basement tax rates and, crucially, 2nd - a battery of “tax treaties” with 46 mostly poorer countries.  Pushed by Western financial institutions in the 1990s, the treaties have proved a boon for Western corporations, their legal and financial advisers, and Mauritius itself — and a disaster for most of the countries that are its treaty partners.