Posted on 03/16/2015 7:47:16 PM PDT by goldstategop
Mrs Yattara leads me to her boss, Mr Kante. He has an office all to himself, and offers me a seat... a seat from which I can hardly see him. Tax rule books and copies of Finance Ministry decrees are piled into turrets all around his desk. He asks me questions about my expenses as a freelance journalist. It's unnerving because he is writing things down but I can't see what. Mr Kante
''You have the choice between two income tax regimens, 30% or 3%, which shall it be?''
''Oh well... err 3%?'' I venture. ''Three per cent it is," he says, adding: "Now we'll have to go and see my boss.''
Mr Kante offers some explanation as we go back downstairs. ''Eighty per cent of Mali's economy is informal," he says. "The government believes the 3% rate will attract more tax payers. What people don't realise is that, as things stand, we struggle to raise 1% or 2%. So this new rate represents something of an increase!''
By that reckoning, the Malian tax authorities have actually done quite well out of me.
Perhaps because I had - strangely - volunteered to pay tax, a basic sense of fairness stood in the way of the staff putting me into the 30% bracket, where perhaps I belong.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Don't know if Mali would be my preferred tax haven.
Ka-ching! I don't know of any other country that let's you choose your effective tax rate.
Oh, the Left in this country would go nuts at the very mention of such an Idea here.
Uh, oh. Not for long with BBC exposure.
Yes, the left would love the highest tax rate to be ten times the lowest tax rate and they would be willing to pay an 11% tax rate to make the tax rate on the right 110%.
He needs to make it interesting and add a door #3.
Paid my property tax yesterday, back to ramen noodles for a while.
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