After spending a full two weeks in Qatar, I’ve gained a new perspective on the area when it comes to the country, but also the middle east as a whole. I’ve lived in America for my entire life, so all my observations of the way business is conducted there was with a very western bias, and while there were many similarities in terms of how business is done in Qatar, there are just as many differences. I thought the way employment is structured is incredibly interesting. Their approach, from what I understood, is to place the burden of living expenses on the employer rather than the employee. For example, most workers had a stipend for rent, transportation, healthcare, and many other necessities we would typically pay out of pocket in America. While I would think it’d all play out the same in the end in terms of economic benefit, there might be some efficiencies they observe by having the employer pay for things that I don’t know of. This means wages can be ridiculously low because theoretically their paycheck is mostly legitimate take-home pay because most expenses are paid for already. There is also only a 10% corporation tax, and no income tax, so I’m not sure how they regulate small businesses whose owner just assigns them a high salary to have to pay very little tax on their corporations income. It also wasn’t abundantly clear if there was an IRS equivalent there or who ensures companies pay their taxes legitimately. As an accounting major, I was always wondering who is reporting financial statements, and is there any real agency that audits or cracks down on companies who misrepresent their financials and it didn’t sound like that was a huge concern amongst the companies we visited. There is also not much of a free market in Qatar, with many of the lasting businesses being tied to the government in some form or fashion, so this is rather different from the free marketplace we have access to here in America. While I’d totally be open to taking a job someday in Qatar under the right circumstances, I do not think it’d be a place I’d ever want to start a business for the lack of clarity amongst the rules and regulations for doing business.
