For those Emiratis who have never visited Australia but are keen to go there, the article (Killer sharks stalk Australian beaches, September 1) is not helpful.
As indicated in the caption of the picture accompanying the article, there have been two fatal shark attacks in Australian waters this year. To put this into perspective, 62 people died on Dubai’s roads in the first five months of this year alone. Who are the real killers?
Pablo Kang, Australian ambassador to the UAE and Qatar
New Rera policy will hurt tenants
In reference to the news item Fewer updates on Dubai rent index (September 1), the rental index is not only used to guide rents, it's used by the municipality to charge housing fees collected by Dubai Electricity and Water Authority. It should be regularly updated and adjusted, especially for those who also pay service fees to developers.
Elan Fabbri, Dubai
Sadly, the only people to suffer from this move will be the tenants. Landlords will now be able to push for rent increases that are artificially high.
We had been looking forward to the release of the new Rera index today. We will now have to wait until January.
Name withheld by request
Will VAT benefit our country?
Introducing VAT will reduce the attractiveness of the UAE as a place to work for both individual and companies (How the introduction of tax would affect salaries in the UAE, September 1).
Perhaps it is only “making the UAE more aligned with international norms”. However, it is not new in the Middle East – Oman has corporate tax. But it takes away from what makes the UAE an interesting place for so many nationalities to come to work.
For low wage earners, this is clearly not good news.
What will happen is that prices will rise and inflation will, in reality, bite hard.
In an ideal world, all the “additional” revenue would be used to build more infrastructure, but what infrastructure is missing here?
The UAE has an amazing network of roads, two world-class airlines and Dubai will host Expo in 2020. So the infrastructure is generally considered to be world class already. Perhaps in Ras Al Khaimah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Fujairah and Sharjah, infrastructure projects need to be funded, although I am quite sure that the inhabitants of these emirates are not hoping that their towns and cities become replicas of Dubai or Abu Dhabi. However, it will be worthwhile if the additional revenue is spent on national defence or a mass regional railway project.
Darren Bennett-Voci, Dubai
I own a business and have done so for the last five years. The moment corporate tax is introduced, I will shut it down. I won’t pay the Dh70,000 annual fee for any renewals. Instead, I will fire my employees and find a job for myself. It would be much more cost effective for me to not have to worry about paying the government a corporate tax on top of wages, bonuses and just have a monthly salary.
John Paravalos, Dubai
Introducing taxes will not be helpful (UAE's introduction of VAT will bolster the country's global competitiveness, August 25). It will slowly but surely impoverish the economy. Look at Sweden. After the Second World War, they were the richest country on Earth. Now they are just rich because of socialism.
Guglielmo Molteni, Dubai
Many of the luxury items in the Gulf are being sold through franchises paying a mark up to the brand owner or franchiser.
This inevitably creates a substantially higher retail price – even before VAT.
Tony Walsh, Oman
