It is late morning during the last week of November as I start writing this essay. I'm back home in Guangzhou. These past three months have been far more hectic with travel than I anticipated: I've been to Japan, twice, India in mid-October and I returned from Dubai, this past weekend. One more trip to go (Shanghai during the first week of December) and I'll have completed this year's travel. Japan-three times; Shanghai-three times; Taipei, London, Bangkok, Mumbai-twice each. Whew!

It is wet outside-we've had 7 successive days of rain. While it is not raining, now, and the sun seems to be making a feeble attempt to break through the clouds, it's going to rain later on - I just can 'feel' it! This essay will prove that I can write about jurisdictions other than the United States!! I'm going to start with China. What I am going to write will be my attempt to write a good portion of a tax article that will not even mention the work 'tax' but has absolutely everything to do with tax because the people involved are the body politic that writes the law and imposes the tax in China. Oh, I know, in advance, that I'm likely to fail to omit the 't' word but you've got to admit, it is a lofty goal!

Early in November, China's National People's Congress completed its sessions, announcing the next round of top leaders for five years to come. Yet the immediate future of who will be running the country was concluded this summer. On the 8th of July the South China Morning Post ran an article about the educational statistics of the next half decade's leadership.

How are these people chosen? I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of a communist party......but the Communist Party of China simply ain't communist, no more, subsequent to 1997, when then leader and still power broker Jiang Zhemin (although I think these days are over for him) changed the rules and admitted capitalists to the CPC. The results, fifteen years later, is the most capitalistic (albeit, still autocratic) nation on earth with leaders who have jockeyed into position in a democratic manner, finding support, both above and below, in the same method that politics guides the internal 'mechanism' of Rotary International. (Boy, am I going to come under flack for using this analogy!)

I am, have been (since 1981) and plan upon always being a member of a Rotary Club, somewhere in this world. I have had 'interaction' at club level, at district level and international level of Rotary and found amazing parallels between democracy and politics of the Communist Party of China and Rotary International. (It is through a Rotary International Study Mission to Pyongyong, a year ago, that I got to discuss the fundamentals of developing a tax system with the deputy foreign minister who's assignment was to develop such a system for the DPRK). The people who rise do so because they play politics - with the assistance from the mentors they've latched on to from above.....come to think of it, where in this world is 'politics' not practiced this way?

Obviously, the leadership of Rotary over the years has been nothing short of very, very impressive. What about the leadership of China for the next five years? Here's where an SCMP article, all the way in the back pages, was a veritable mine of information! All 31 provincial party congresses have new party chiefs - 17 of them hold post graduate degrees, 14 of them with PhDs. The Tianjin Municipality, considered part of that group of 31, has a 13 member standing committee. 7 of them hold doctorates in management, economy, law and culture - none of them are engineers. Engineering was the path towards political leadership in China during decades past.

It is interesting to note that of the 31 provincial level chiefs, 7 of them come from the Communist Youth League, the power base of outgoing China President Hu Jin Tao. There are a total of 402 members of all the 31 provincial level standing committees - this is the body politic that will in fact oversee the administration of taxation throughout the country in years to come. This is a body politic that will be under scrutiny, as never before, because of the plague of corruption. Of these 402 members, 148, or 37 percent of them were members of the Communist Youth League. Who said that Hu has not put his people in power? These are the individuals who will be groomed to become future regional or national leaders in the future. 1 percent of them were born during the 1940s. 277 of them were born in the '50s - that's 69 percent of them. The balance, 29 percent, 117, were born in the '60s.

100 of the 402 hold doctorates: 32 in economics; 29 in business administration; 15 in law; Only 13 of them hold PhDs in engineering.

Yeah, it's not democracy as practiced in India or the U.S. or the U.K. But compare the intellectual prowess of those in similar positions in India or the U.S. or the U.K. Now ask yourself a question: Which group is best qualified to set the national path of taxation over the next half-decade? Say what you want but I simply do not foresee talk of either a fiscal cliff or Grecian default ever happening in China over the next five years.....talk about corruption and discipline will get a lot of attention, naturally, but let's see what an educated group like this can do - both towards ending a culture inclined to 'be on the take' and towards developing a tax policy that works as a long-range catalyst towards turning the Chinese from a nation of savers to a country of spending consumers.....

Tell you what: after reading what I've written, thus far (see, I told you while what I wrote does not really mention tax - I said the T word, I admit - but not much else.....but has absolutely everything to do with tax!), I'm setting this up in my calendar for five years from now: a follow-up regarding what this "class of 2012" has accomplished will make a really good essay!

And now...back to tax and business - and continuing with the 'other than U.S.' article, let's discuss the newest of those nations dropped from 'pariah state' status - Myanmar.

First, I have a confession to make: I have not yet been to Myanmar. I had tentatively scheduled trips there 4 or 5 times over the past decade but these never came to fruition. This, though, poses no problem for me as I currently have clients - three of them - all 'unrelated' business clients involved in business operations there, now - in fact, I have client involvement with Myanmar dating back to well into that time of strict US trade embargo enforcement (no, these were not U.S. clients, so I was not involved in embargo violations!). Myanmar - or Burma - it is still referred to as both came vividly to my reading enjoyment quite some time back, when I read Amitav Ghosh's 'The Glass Palace'. In a word, this book is brilliant! If you enjoy reading good literature, then I recommend this book without any qualifications, what-so-ever!!

Anyhow, Myanmar's brand spanking new Foreign Investment Law was enacted on the 2d of November and is a major change, replacing the prior law which was on the books since 1988. That's a pretty long time in the 'shelf-life' of an investment law, so you can see the new law's importance.

There is a cultural affinity between India and Myanmar. There is a long history of trade and with a liberalization of procedures and laws that goes hand in hand with the new openness of the country, this information, which was provided to me by Tax Analysts, who I have been writing for the past 11 years, is particularly relevant. Here are the important 'bullet points' of the new law, as reported on 26 November.

* Foreign investors can now own 100 percent of their business in Myanmar - with the exceptions of some specific activities that the government promises to soon provide, local partners are no longer necessary.

* Customs duties will no longer apply on imported machinery and equipment of a foreign entity in Myanmar during the construction phase of factory development and there will be no duties imposed upon imported raw materials for the first three years of manufacturing operations.

* Research and development expenses are eligible for expense deduction and not subject to being capitalized.

* Losses of the company can be carried forward for three years.

* Profit re-investment will be eligible for tax credit/relief.

* There will no longer be a three year tax holiday - this will be replaced by a five year tax holiday(!).....and manufacturing entities will be eligible for tax relief of up to 50 percent of profits from export activities.

* Foreign investors are now entitled to lease land for an initial period of 50 years, extendable, twice, for an additional ten years, each renewal period.

These are some really nice perks! There are many out there who believe that the combination of the cultural work ethic, ability to grasp the concept of quality control and tax perks will make Myanmar far stronger a competitor for Vietnam than the Vietnamese would like - but such is life in our competitive world.

That's it, my friends, for a 'non-U.S.' essay. I promise you that you'll get more of my 'standard variety', to be written right after the stroke of mid-night as we enter 2013. The drama of what transpires in the U.S. Congress will likely go down to the proverbial wire - and I'll be there, at my cynical best, writing about it all!