Well I found out today when I stopped off at a taxi rank shelter and got to talking to some of the drivers. It all goes back to 1984 when the government made it possible for offshore companies to incorporate in Tortola and providing they did no business there pay no local taxes. When Panama went sour and Hong Kong went back to the Chinese Tortola became the most popular location for offshore company registration. Despite bing a tiny island with 20,000 inhbitants they hold 41% of the world's offshore company registration. As the drivers said sucking their teeth "Lotsa mony come and go and some she stay".
So a trip that costsd a dollar in a Safari on St Thomas is a $12 taxi ride here.
The drivers spent a while topping each others best tip and most outragous fair stories. Some may even have been true. It was fun to listen to them talk about bankers and lawyers and banks and how the government officers seemed to get rich quickly.
I hope that this tendancy is not present in the old Scots engineer who is making a new bushing for my broken pulley. But he quoted a most reasonable figure I just hope he can stick to it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment