No complaints on round-tripping money from India: Mauritius

Dismissing the notion that Mauritius is a tax haven, the island nation's Vice-Prime Minister Ramakrishna Sithanen today said he has not received any complaints from India about routing investments via his country to evade taxes.

However, Sithanen, who is also the Finance and Economic Development Minister, promised to cooperate with Indian authorities to check tax evasion in case of complaints, but added his country would not welcome "fishing expeditions".

"Mauritius is not a tax haven... We have not received a single complaint of round tripping from competent authorities (in India)," he said while talking to reporters on the sidelines of an investors conference.

Round-tripping is usually referred to routing of domestic investments through Mauritius to take advantage of the Double Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) to pay lower taxes on profits.

India has reportedly found many cases of misuse of the DTAA with Mauritius and is working on revising the treaty with the country to prevent its abuse by companies, domestic or foreign.

In April-October 2009-10, India received about $18 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) and nearly half of it -- around $8 billion -- came from Mauritius.