Monday, March 23, 2015

First Vishnu Budget in 25 Years Now Available

Given that it was supposed to be a 75-minute budget I listened to most of it. It's a lot more pleasant than those that were presented between 2005 and 2010. There are a number of interesting things like gaming houses leaving city centres and the ban of plastic bags. Which has been in force for over nine months in Rodrigues. And they have increased their lead having recently announced the sorting of garbage like some countries do. Promising to implement the report which looked at making banking practices fairer is also not a bad idea.

Of course it's not a no-tax budget. Government has already quietly depreciated our rupee -- 12.8% as of today's speech -- and kept petrol prices higher than they ought to have been. The steady depreciation will make sure that Mauritius doesn't benefit from the collapse in oil prices. Again.

There are also other problems with this budget. Like inequality is likely to persist. More on this later.

What did you think?

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Zero plombage.Again

Anonymous said...

Pas d’augmentation de la Corporate Tax.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

I think we'll have to wait for the Finance Bill to really find out.

Anonymous said...

Why wait for that?

He said he prefers a low tax regime - for all, i.e. for workers as well as for corporates BECAUSE, as R.S, he believes that a low tax regime creates investment.

I heard him say that on the radio.

Anonymous said...

ki difference enan entre ca FM et l'autre la? Exit Ali enter Mr depreciation rupee!!

Tout ca cumulatively pou faire un degat soon, le temps passe vite mon ami.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Lalit provides us with some food for thought.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Touria Prayag -- just like almost everyone with a minimum of logic -- doesn't agree that Vishnu's budget is a no-tax budget. It is funny to read though that she thought our economy showed "remarkable resilience and only needs fixing at the edges".

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Mem Dev Virahsawmy finn konpran linpak nefas flat tax. Ek li truv drol ki VL pann koriz sa dan so bidze. Se en ameliorasyon par rapor a sertin so bann komanter.

Anonymous said...

The Lalit piece is exactly to the point.

akagugo said...

His convoluted analysis on monetary policy was like a preparation of things to come: not even a word on the trend that will satisfy only a minuscule lot as this...
Arvind's view converges towards Ms Collen's piece which sums it well: a bluff.

Anonymous said...

BOM trying to deflect attention from the accelerated rupee depreciation blunder. Can you imagine?

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Convoluted mem sa. Bon eski lor ti mont depi USD790 ziska USD1,900 dan 1 banane? Uswa plito 3 banane?

Swadick se enn fann de seki kav apel ze Laffer zozo club. Ki enn filial klib linflasyon-zame-pa-finn-tuye-kiken.

Me wi, me wi, fasil rekonet bann top antreprener. Nek ena tann zot enn tigit ;-)

Anonymous said...

http://www.lexpress.mu/article/260500/depreciation-roupie-bientot-une-hausse-prix-denrees-alimentaires-importees

Anonymous said...

one hundred days after taking over the top management of the bank of mauritius finds that the lack of investments in disaster recovery over the last seven years is the cause for the disruption of the macss last week.

assuming that the previous governor was very bad does it take that long for basant roi to find out about such a critical issue? assuming like has been reported in the press that the investments did not happen before because of disagreement between IT and top management why did the same IT people not draw the attention of new old governor about such a critical issue?

furthermore the bom has issued a communique saying that a few days before the disaster its board had decided to carry out a full and independent audit of its IT system. This adds grist to the mill that the apparently critical IT problem had not yet been identified or was not deemed critical enough to catch the attention of the decision-makers at the bom.

all of this looks very suspicious the more so considering the backdrop of the rapid depreciation of the rupee. bom/npf scandal all over again?

akagugo said...

A 'good' starting point for Pravind to amend Vishnu's lapses. And then we'll get serious with other bread-and-butter issues.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

VL should have presented the budget PJ presented on Thursday with at least one tweak: add a couple of tax brackets all the way to 25%. So this budget is two years late and has some pretty big shortcomings.