Real estate tycoon Surendra Hiranandani, co-founder of the Hiranandani Group, has given up his Indian citizenship to become a citizen of Cyprus.
An island nation in Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus is a pygmy in comparison to India’s economic and diplomatic heft. While Indian dollar millionaires ditching India for tax havens in Europe and the Caribbean islands is an old trend, Hiranandani says tax is not his reason to embrace Cyprus.
“The primary reason is difficulty in getting work visas on Indian passport. I have absolutely no issues with tax rates and other such things. My son Harsh continues to be an Indian citizen and he looks after our company’s interests in India,” Hiranandani told Mumbai Mirror. Harsh is Hiranandani’s son from his first marriage. He is now married to actor Akshay Kumar’s sister Alka Bhatia. According to Forbes, Surendra Hiranandani’s net worth is $1.29 billion, and he is among the 100 richest Indians. Hiranandani, 63, along with his elder brother Niranjan, turned their real estate company into one of the largest in the country and developed Powai into a thriving residential area.
Hiranandani lamented the state of construction business in the country, saying the profit margins were not more than 10% whereas developers were forced to borrow money at 12% annual interest. “If I had a chance to speak with Prime Minister Narendra Modi today, I would urge him to do something about improving the ease of getting various permissions for the real estate sector. Then, of course, there is the major problem of the rate of interest the builders are charged,” he said.
India witnessed the second largest number of millionaire outflow globally after China with 7,000 high net worth individuals changing their domicile during 2017, 16 per cent more than last year, according to a report by New World Wealth. 7,000 ultra- rich Indians shifted overseas in 2017. In 2016, the figure stood at 6,000, while in 2015 as many as 4,000 millionaires shifted base.
India Times