--- On Thu, 4/9/09, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: 4(Four) News. Who is lier on the Indian Black in Swiss Banks: Jai Ram Ramesh Or Advani? Is India ready tofollow USA? To: "Her Excellency President of India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil" <[email protected]>, "Hon'ble Prime Miister of India Dr. Man Mohan Singh" <[email protected]>, [email protected], "Hon’ble Chief Justice of India Mr K G Balakrishanan" <[email protected]>, [email protected], "Home Minister of IndiaShri P. Chidambaram" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], "Serious Fraud Investigation Office" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], "Share Market Ombudsman" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], "Smt. Sonia Gandhi" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Date: Thursday, April 9, 2009, 6:25 AM (1) http://www.gfip.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=80 G-20 Must Combat Illicit Flight To Alleviate Poverty In Developing Countries Joint News Release from Global Financial Integrity and Global Witness April 2, 2009 Monique Perry Danziger, 202-293.0740 Corinna Gilfillan, 202-380.3583 Washington – Every year developing countries lose as much as $1 trillion due to illicit financial practices such as government corruption, tax evasion, and criminal activity. Today’s pledge from the G-20 to increase funding for the IMF and for the developing world are laudable, but these efforts must also address illicit capital flight which remains the greatest impediment to economic development and poverty alleviation. GFI Director Raymond Baker said today “increasing aid will be marginally effective as long as the so-called shadow financial system remains intact. Comprised of tax havens, secrecy jurisdictions, and a host of other entities and techniques designed to shift assets across borders illicitly, this global network is facilitating a draining of assets which outpace official development aid at a rate of 10 to one. This means that for every $1 dollar that goes into developing countries as aid, $10 goes right back out via courtesy of this shadow financial system.” Continue Reading > (2) KAMAL SHARMA wrote: Opinion - Secret wealth abroad | S Gurumurthy L K Advani remarks about bringing back black money stashed in foreign banks is unlikely to excite the ruling family which has aborted all previous attempts to do so The whole nation knew then that the real reason why rulers struck was their fear that the probe had targeted the Bofors payoff and secret money of the ruling family abroad. Rajiv Gandhi moved honest civil servants like Vinod Pandey and Bhure Lal out of the probe and sacked VP who, was finance minister thenS witzerland has been accused of giving shelter to black money and there has been a lot of inflow of such wealth from India and other countries of the world.†This is not L K Advani, on election mode, speaking last Sunday, but the Swiss ambassador to India briefing the media in Delhi last year. The occasion was the 60th anniversary of Indo-Swiss Friendship Treaty. Admitting that Indian black money gets hoarded in his country, he added that the new law in Switzerland would, not stop it, but control it “up to a certain limitâ€.The Swiss diplomat authentically answers the first of the FAQs, that is, whether a lot of Indian money is really stashed away in Swiss banks. Swiss banks are not the only secret destination. There are 37 such shelters in the world, says US Inland Revenue. The secret owners of the secreted monies operate in secrecy — venal businessmen, corrupt politicians, public servants, drug lords, and criminal gangs like the D-company. The slush monies are the financial RDX for terror, besides weapons of mass destruction of national and global finance. That there is secret money is no more a secret. Only the amounts and persons are secret. But how much of India’s stolen wealth could be stashed in Switzerland? Specific estimates of this later. Before that, here is a sideshow, but a relevant one.In the late 1980s, at the behest of The Indian Express, while investigating the Reliance scam, I had attempted to trail the Indian monies secreted abroad. In the course of the probe, I had contacted Fairfax, a US investigative firm, to uncover the Indian wealth stashed abroad. Impressed by their skills, I persuaded the Government of India to engage the firm for the task. Fairfax agreed to work for a slice of the black wealth uncovered by them as fee. According to Swiss sources then, the Indian money secreted in Swiss banks was some $300 billion. That was enough to excite Fairfax to go for the kill.. But, soon my efforts landed me in jail on March 13, 1987, when the CBI arrested me on charges that later turned out to be bogus, but were enough to stop the probe. The whole nation knew then that the real reason why rulers struck was their fear that the probe had targeted the Bofors payoff and secret money of the ruling family abroad. Rajiv Gandhi, who was the prime minister then, moved honest and bold civil servants like Vinod Pandey and Bhure Lal out of the probe and eventually sacked V P Singh who, as finance minister then, had authorised the efforts.The chain of events that followed led to corruption emerging as the major issue in the 1989 polls in which Rajiv Gandhi, who had wiped out the opposition in 1984 elections, was defeated, and V P Singh became the prime minister. But there is a great lesson in these developments that often goes unnoticed. And that is, the way the bold national interest initiative to unearth the Indian black wealth abroad was aborted clearly confirmed that the ruling family was mortally afraid of any probe into secret money abroad. This fear haunts the family-led Congress party even today. That is why the 1987 episode is relevant now. Now back to the main story.Illicit money is the dirty outcome of modern capitalism. But, after 9/11, the US realised that not just the buccaneers in business, but Osama bin Laden could also hide his funds in secret havens and use them to bomb the world. Campaigns against dirty money as high security risk commenced with the path-breaking research done by Raymond W Baker, a Harvard MBA and a Brookings scholar. He published his research as a book Capitalism’s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the FreeMarket System. The book was published in 2005. This set off intense debate in the US as the exposure linked dirty business and dirty money with terror and national security. Raymond Baker had estimated, using authentic data, tools and reasons, the dirty wealth secreted in banks at $11.5 trillion to which, he found, one more trillion was being added annually. He added that in the process the West was getting an annual bounty of $500 billion from the developing countries, India included. Global Financial Integrity (GFI), http://www.gfip.org/ a global watchdog headed by Baker to curtail illicit money flows, has recently brought out detailed estimates of the black wealth hoarded in secret havens from different countries. GFI research shows that during the period 2002 to 2006, annually $27.3 billion was stashed away from India, making a total of $137.5 billion for the five-year period. That is, in just five years, Indian wealth amounting to Rs 6.88 lakh crore has been smuggled out of India. This gives a clue as to how much Indian money would have slipped out of India in the last 62 years, particularly during the Nehruvian socialist regime when the income tax (97.5 per cent) and wealth tax (almost equal to the income earned on investments) together constituted double the income earned. It is undisputed that the Nehruvian socialist model forced huge sums out of India. So the amount of Indian black wealth secreted away in the last 60 years — estimated at from $500 billion (Rs 25 lakh crore) to $1400 billion (Rs 70 lakh crore) — does not seem to be wide off the mark. Economists call it flight of capital. This is the people’s money stolen from them.See the consequence even if part of it is brought back. A portion of it would make India free from all external debts which is now over $220 billion; India will transform into an economic superpower; some 10 or 15 Indian rupees could buy a US dollar which today 50 Indian rupees cannot; a litre of petrol on our roadside would cost Rs 15 or even less, against today’s 50 plus; the cost of imports in rupee terms would be down to a third or half; India’s entire infrastructure needs can be funded; India will become so energy efficient and costcompetitive that exporters may need no sops at all; India will lend to — not, as it does now, borrow from — the world; Indian housing can be funded at affordable cost; rural poverty can be wiped out... The list is endless. But, then, is it possible to bring back the secreted monies? What are the roadblocks to such efforts¦ (3) Swiss money: Congress calls Advani a liar By our Delhi correspondent | April 08, 2009 | 15:36 IST Responding to Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani's allegations about black money hoarded in Swiss bank accounts, Jairam Ramesh, the man in charge of the Congress' campaign for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, has advised the party's prime ministerial candidate against using 'obscure and unauthenicated Internet sources' to back his claims. In a curtly worded letter to Advani, Ramesh accuses him of lying on the issue, claiming that the numbers presented by the BJP leader were a 'total hoax' This is the letter written by Ramesh to Advani: Dear Shri Advani, I have always been amused by the sources you cite in your speeches in Parliament and outside. But your use of some obscure and unauthenicated Internet source to raise the pitch on Indian money stashed away in Swiss banks is really the limit. It is not just amusing. It is shocking, coming from a leader of your purported stature. To put it bluntly, Shri Advani, you are lying. That your entire edifice of numbers on the black money issue is a total hoax has been demonstrated most convincingly by two of India's most distinguished economists -- Ashok Desai and Bibek Debroy -- who have both been critical of the Congress as well in the past on various issues. That there are Indians with Swiss bank accounts is incontrovertible -- many of them, incidentally, may well be BJP supporters and part of your election funding may well be coming from these sources. There can also be no dispute on the fact that we must try and get this money back. We have had amnesty schemes in the past -- some have succeeded and some have not. But I would like to ask you a straight question -- in the six years that you were Home Minister, can you tell the country one single step you took to get Indian accounts in Swiss banks made transparent? Your use of 'ISI' data to claim that poverty has increased during 2004/05-08/09 is another example of complete bogusness. I think you may well be referring to a study done by Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan and not by our prestigious Indian Statistical Institute. The study of ISI, Kolkata stops at 2004/05 and whatever conclusions you have drawn from that study are completely false. I have already written to your aide Sudheendra Kulkarni on this issue. I attach a copy of the email I have sent him. Goebbels believed that if you keep repeating a lie several times, people will begin to believe it. Your ideological brotherhood has perfected this dictum. With regards, Jairam Ramesh URL for this article: http://www.rediff.com///election/2009/apr/08loksabhapoll-swiss-money-congress-calls-advani-a-liar.htm TRUTH SHALL ALWAYS PREVAIL Milap Choraria Editor: Suchna Ka Adhikar / RTI TIMES National Convenor : Movement for Accountability to Public (MAP) http://milapchoraria.tripod.com/msp http://rtitimes.net (4) APRIL 8, 2009, 11:50 A.M. ET Facing Tax-Haven Crackdown, Swiss Bankers Avoid Travel By STEPHEN FIDLER LONDON -- Swiss private bankers are becoming wary about traveling abroad, underscoring how hard a global crackdown on tax avoidance is hitting the discreet business of providing banking services to the wealthy. UBS AG, the world's largest manager of private wealth by assets, has barred "client-facing" staff in its wealth-management divisions from traveling abroad -- a move aimed at avoiding further trouble for the bank, which has had two bankers arrested as part of a continuing U.S. investigation into tax fraud. At the same time, other private bankers in Switzerland are being advised to exercise personal discretion in their travel decisions, people familiar with the matter said. The travel jitters come as leaders of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations have redoubled efforts to crack open the secretive tax havens where private bankers often park their clients' money. Following last week's G-20 meeting, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development included Switzerland on a "gray list" of countries that hadn't yet followed through on promises to comply with its directives on sharing tax information. Meanwhile, U.S. authorities have been offering leniency to tax evaders in exchange for information on the bankers who helped them hide the money. For UBS, the travel ban could hinder the lucrative wealth-management business on which it has relied to survive the financial crisis. That business was already declining as U.S. tax authorities pushed the bank to provide them with names of U.S. clients suspected of tax evasion. UBS has turned over information on nearly 300 accounts as part of a deal in which it admitted to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The bank is still under pressure from the IRS to provide information on 52,000 other accounts. UBS says bank secrecy laws forbid it to do so. Two UBS bankers have been arrested and a further senior executive is being sought in connection with the case. U.S. investigations continue into some of the bank's U.S. clients. Private clients at UBS withdrew a net 123 billion Swiss francs ($108.17 billion) in 2008, compared with a net inflow of 156 billion francs in 2007. That means the bank lost market share to its chief rival, Credit Suisse Group AG, whose private-banking business saw 51 billion francs of inflows last year. UBS had a total of 1.6 trillion francs under management at the end of last year, compared to 789 billion francs at Credit Suisse. A UBS spokesman said the travel ban, which went into effect April 1, was a "precautionary measure" that would last at least several more weeks while the bank reviews its compliance procedures. The ban affects about 1,000 of the bank's roughly 14,000 client advisers. Most advisers deal only with domestic clients. They can still use the phone and email to communicate with clients in other countries, and clients can visit their advisers. UBS instructed its private bankers not to travel to the U.S. last year, after U.S. authorities detained one banker in Florida. In February, Swiss authorities banned UBS from engaging in cross-border business with U.S. clients. Other Swiss banks, including Credit Suisse, said they hadn't introduced blanket travel bans. A spokesman for Zurich-based Julius Baer Holding Ltd. said travel was left to individual bankers' discretion. In a separate development, the OECD announced that the four jurisdictions it had included in a "black list" of uncooperative tax havens -- Uruguay, Costa Rica, the Philippines and Malaysia -- had agreed to come into line. Write to Stephen Fidler at [email protected]
