MATRIX REPORT
A report by the Reuters news agency provides an eye-opening account of how multi-nationals and their national business stakeholders can subvert law and regulations to the disadvantage of the majority. The report has uncovered a massive scam involving collusion between Amazon.com and its Indian partners to circumvent law and regulations.
Reuters report is based on internal Amazon documents dated between 2012 and 2019 and provides an insight into the “cat-and-mouse game” Amazon has been playing with the Indian authorities i.e. adjusting its corporate structures each time the government imposed new restrictions aimed at protecting small traders. Amazon used a small group of sellers on its India platform to circumvent the country’s strict foreign investment regulations, Businessworld.In reported.
Indian business lobbies reacted sharply to the revelations by the news agency. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which claims to represent 80 million retail stores across the country, has demanded a ban on the local operations of Amazon.com Inc.
The Confederation says “the shocking revelations” in the Reuters story are “sufficient enough to immediately ban operations of Amazon in India,” and urged the Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to take immediate note of this “important and burning issue and order for a ban on operations of Amazon in India.”
Such practices are, one would assume, are also part of similar collaborations between foreign and national stakeholders in countries such as India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, where big business refuses to pay taxes and wants to operate free of any regulation.
The stiff opposition to CNIC-based business transactions via bank by most Pakistani businessmen and industrialists is a case in point; they stitch up joint ventures with foreign companies and then advise them how to avoid and evade taxes.
Will be interesting for FBR to figure out how local and foreign on-line delivery businesses are conducting their businesses and to what extent are they fairly complying to the taxation regime.
