Indian initiative

"The seminar provided a unique opportunity to the chartered accountant (CA) and company secretary (CS) fraternity to learn the laws and methods of incorporating an offshore company or a local company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a period of 50 years... there is no sales tax, excise duty, service tax or any revenue law in the UAE,” explains CA Yezdi Master of Master and Company, Bombay. Company laws too are very simple and short and there is no taxation of income of any kind in the UAE for an individual or corporate, he adds.

At the Horwath Mak Business Consulting seminar in Bombay (from left): Yezdi Master, Ilyas Manjra, managing partner, Horwath Mak, Anil Bhandari, Dr Khalid Maniar, founder, Homi Ranina and Zayd Maniar

On Master’s initiative, Horwath Mak Business Consulting (Horwath Mak), an ISO 9001:2000 certified leading consultancy firm in Dubai, held a seminar in Bombay to guide and invite the Indian business community and investors to the UAE to expand their business horizons. The firm provides services in the areas of setting up new businesses, free zone and offshore company formation, trademark, logo, copyright and patent registration, franchise and IT solutions, etc as per a press release of October 11, 2011 from Nirmal Phophalia, president, Newsmen Media Consultants, Bombay. The UAE free zones currently guarantee nil tax regimes for 50 years with no restrictions on capital or profit repatriation, the press release adds.
"Major economies such as the USA, Greece and Italy had become victims of financial and debt crises, whereas Japan was a victim of natural calamities,” Dr Khalid Maniar, founder and group managing partner, told the gathering at the Rangeshwar Hall of the Y. B. Chavan Centre on October 4. Due to the global recessionary impact, the UAE had also suffered a setback in the last two years, but it has been recovering quickly. The UAE is one of the world’s wealthiest countries, with a GDP (gross domestic product) of more than US $ 700 billion. It has the third largest proven oil reserves in the world. With an efficient (avoidance of) double taxation treaty with India and 48 other countries, it is regarded as a tax haven, the audience was informed.
The president of the Western India Regional Council of ICAI (The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India) Anil Bhandari was the chief guest. Well-known lawyer and tax expert Homi Ranina was the guest of honor, Master informed Parsiana. "He (Ranina) has a special place in the UAE as he regularly visits to deliver his famous post-budget lectures. He has delivered speeches, more so in Dubai, for guidance to NRIs (non resident Indians) who have settled in large numbers there and who require (information) on income tax, FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act) and other investment laws prevailing in India,” Master elucidates.
Horwath Mak is a lead member of Crowe Horwath International which has several offices in the UAE as well as in Iran, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan. "I have been associated with them for the last 16 years as I used to regularly visit Dubai, Muscat and Bahrain, as well as Nigeria and Singapore for my professional work of obtaining private equity. My field of specialization lies in providing finance (private equity funds) from high net worth individuals based in the UAE, Muscat, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Hongkong. In the course of the last 20 years, I have travelled the world to source funds for Indian enterprises, business persons and traders,” explains Master.

(Below, top row, from left): Tata AutoComp Systems’ S. Diwanji receiving memento from WZCC’s Pheroze Kharas, Adi Siganporia with Walwhan Garden manager Vivek Vishwasrao, Kersi Kapadia of Tata AutoComp Systems with Kharas and others; WZCC members at Tata Power’s serene garden at Lonavla

The CA fraternity responded positively to the seminar, with requests made to him personally to organize similar conferences in Ahmedabad, Surat, Jamnagar, etc for enterprising Gujaratis, Master asserts. "Not a single Zoroastrian entrepreneur responded,” he regrets. There are around 3,000 Zoroastrians living in the entire area of the Gulf Co-operation Council, i.e. UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia, but most are in the service sector except for a few business enterprises engaged in electrical engineering, shipping and in general trading of commodities.
Master says he travelled recently to the north eastern states of Nagaland and Manipur as he had been invited by a Nagaland based private limited company which had put up a passion fruit plant there. "I have been invited as a director on the board of Exotic Juice Limited and Exotic Construction Limited, Manipur which holds vast mines of coal which is in great demand in India,” he informed Parsiana on the e-mail.