Amazon to buy pesky Cyprus in 2021 as next-gen tech shines
2021 will see Amazon and other online and infotech giants casting an increasingly wary eye on governments looking to take them down a notch for being too powerful, and for paying low tax rates.
As a result, Amazon will attempt to ‘buy’ Cyprus, according to Saxo Bank.
In its 2021 Outrageous Predictions, the FI observes: “These companies have long employed an army of lobbyists, with some of them even taking up quasi-governmental approaches to the situation.”
“Take Microsoft, which has launched a United Nations representation office in New York and hired a diplomat to run European government affairs. At the same time, Facebook has even established a “Supreme Court” to oversee user complaints and other issues.”
In 2021, as the heat from official quarters rises, Amazon will make its move, redomiciling its EU headquarters to Cyprus, Saxon Bank reckons.
The country will welcome the US e-commerce giant and the tax revenue that will help it reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio of nearly 100%, having chafed at the heavy-handed treatment by the EU during the 2010-12 EU sovereign debt crisis.
Amazon consultants will “help” Cyprus to rewrite its tax code to mimic Ireland’s, but with even lower levels of corporate and other taxes, with the country’s leaders and its population happily in its thrall from the financial windfall and lower tax rates.
EU regulators will, however, quickly get wise to what is going on and move against Amazon, forcing the company to change its practices, and forcing Cyprus and other EU countries to harmonise tax rules.
The US and other countries will also move against monopolies in 2021, as these companies are punished for their hubris.
FinTech and drones
Also next year, economists will discover that the growth rates in many frontiers and emerging markets have been woefully underestimated in recent years.
Closer analysis will reveal that key technologies may lie at the root of an acceleration in private sector productivity growth far beyond anything seen in the developed markets in recent decades.
This will include the ongoing revolution in FinTech payment and banking systems which have already given billions of people access to the digital economy via their mobile devices.
Meanwhile, drone technology is set to revolutionise delivery systems and reduce the disadvantages and costs of living away from the largest cities and towns.
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