Maya Forstater

Doubt it was 20%. When Mongolia signs tax treaties with most of the world reducing withholding to 10%, there's nothing surprising or unethical when people take advantage of that. 2/5

But more fundamentally, lenders don't normally bear the cost of withholding tax. They've priced a deal on an interest rate of x% and expect to get that. Withholding tax is, almost always, the cost of the borrower - whether the borrower is a small business or a government. 3/5

Here the borrower was the Mongolian government. My bet is that the terms of the loan made any withholding the government's cost. So charging withholding tax would meant that, effectively, the Mongolian government was taxing itself. 4/5