Colombia’s elite hiding more than a quarter of country’s GDP in fiscal paradises

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Colombia’s elite hiding more than a quarter of country’s GDP in fiscal paradises
Posted by Adriaan Alsema on Apr 4, 2016

Colombia’s wealthy have $100 billion, more than a quarter of the country’s GDP, stashed in offshore accounts, the country’s former tax chief estimated Monday.

In an interview with Caracol Radio, former DIAN director Juan Ricardo Ortega said that, based on research, the tax evasion practices of the wealthy makes the Colombian state lose out on billions of dollars in revenue every year.

Tax evasion became a global hot topic after 11 million documents from Panamanian law company Mossack Fonseca were leaked.

According to newspaper El Espectador, more than 800 Colombians are client of the discredited law firm that has helped the world’s wealthy hide their assets from their respective countries’ tax authorities.

Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombias-rich-hiding-100b-wealth-fiscal-paradises/

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(Very sad realizing the US has dumped more than $10 billion into Colombia since 2000, yet none of it has gone to aid the poor, and the cocaine trade is still flourishing.)

[Judi Lynn]

1. 15 Years and $10 Billion Later, U.S. Efforts to Curb Colombia’s Cocaine Trade Have Failed

15 Years and $10 Billion Later, U.S. Efforts to Curb Colombia’s Cocaine Trade Have Failed

By Megan Alpert
February 8, 2016 - 1:26 pm

Last week, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos came to Washington to tout the dual-barreled successes of peace talks with the rebel group FARC and Plan Colombia, an aid program that began in 2000 when the government had control of only a third of its country. At a Feb. 4 reception, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the next phase of the partnership between Bogota and Washington would be called Peace Colombia and hailed “a country that was on the brink of collapse is now on the brink of peace.”

Amid the congratulatory speeches, however, nothing was said about the fact that Plan Colombia has done little to stem the nation’s cocaine exports after 15 years and $10 billion in U.S. aid devoted to what was initially a counter-narcotics program.

Santos did not deny that Colombia remains the world’s No. 1 cocaine producer. “We’ve never been No. 2,” he quipped during a Feb. 3 question-and-answer session hosted by the Wilson Center think-tank in Washington. In fact, Colombia did fall behind Peru for two years, before retaking the top spot in 2014.

Yet Santos also said coca production is expected to go up over the next few years — even though Plan Colombia originally sought to cut in half the country’s drug production by 2006.

More:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/08/15-years-and-10-billion-later-u-s-efforts-to-curb-colombias-cocaine-trade-have-failed/

[jomin41]

2. Don't forget about the thousands of

deaths, many innocent, resulting from our disgusting policy in that country.

[Judi Lynn]

3. We'd be doing them a favor to forget their address. They've lost so many, already.

However, that's not about to happen to a country Rumsfeld has considered a "lily pad" country for the US, providing a place to use as a "forward operating base" from which to move in any direction in Latin America to "help" Latin Americans from various threats we name, without naming the obvious: The poor, the helpless, the desperate, those who hope to help them, the left.

[jalan48]

4. And the oligarch's say we need austerity.

This is one way to shrink government, have some very wealthy people avoid paying taxes.

[Judi Lynn]

5. They give themselves their own "tax cuts." n/t

[Ferd Berfel]

6. Dont you wonder how much of OUR GDP is living

in the room next to Columbia's?

[Judi Lynn]

7. That could be a major reason the leak managers at the Guardian, etc. are not releasing any US names,

don't you imagine?

They'd be faced with a backlash they aren't prepared to confront. Sooner or later, THAT part's going to come out, too, if there is ever going to be justice in this world again.

[Ferd Berfel]

9. I'd recommend to them that they never again get in a small plane

and have their food tasted from now on.


Their lives will be in danger if they leak any one on this side of the pond.

[OnyxCollie]

8. I'm just gonna leave this here.

Perhaps the most important modern institution in the field of group power-and it contrasts dramatically with Maitland's picture of clubs, religious associations, and charities preferring the hedge of the trust and the anonymity of unincorporated status- is the "foundation" which flourishes in contemporary America.

The foundation is largely an American creation. No doubt the accumulation of vast wealth was one reason for its rise; another-at least in the days when Carnegie, Rockefeller, and others perpetuated their names through their now world famous bequests-was unquestionably a desire of wealthy and successful men to purge their consciences before God and man and to justify the acquisitive society which had enabled them to accumulate enormous riches by leaving a vast proportion of their wealth for the benefit of mankind.6 But in recent years these reasons for the earlier foundations have become less important, and the incorporated foundation or trust has become predominantly a business device, a paramount instrument in the struggle between the demands of the modern Welfare State and the wish of the individual entrepreneur to perpetuate his fortune and his name. The greatest and most influential of the foundations (Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie) are the creations of individuals or families, but the large foundations of the future will increasingly be the creations of corporations. The desires to give and to perpetuate the name of the individual or corporate donor are undoubtedly still important motivations, but the immense growth in the number and size of foundations in recent years7 suggests that business considerations play an increasing role. By either bequeathing or giving during his lifetime a proportion of his estate to a permanent institution established for officially recognized charitable purposes, the donor, usually the controller of an industrial or business empire,8 achieves a number of purposes.9 In the United States gifts to such organizations are exempt from gift taxes, and bequests to them are deductible for estate tax purposes. The organizations themselves are normally exempt from income tax, property tax, and other taxes. A charitable gift intervivos is an allowable deduction from the taxable income of the donor.10 The absence of the latter privilege in English law may be one reason why incorporated charities are not so widespread in Britain (apart, of course, from the vastly greater capital wealth of United States business). Otherwise, motivations for the establishment of charitable companies are very similar." The arithmetics of these benefits vary from year to year and are, of course, subject to legislative changes. Unless, however, there were to be a fundamental change in legislation in regard to charitable gifts,12 the advantages of transferring both capital and annual income away from the personal estate of a taxpayer in the high income brackets or away from a corporation are very considerable.13 But in the age of the managerial revolution and the Welfare State, a motive at least equal to that of providing a suitable mechanism for philanthropy and a tax free reservoir for an otherwise highly taxable income is the power which the foundation gives to the controller of a business or industry to perpetuate his control.14

Friedmann, W. G. (1957). Corporate power, government by private groups, and the law. Columbia Law Review, 57(2), 155-186.

Bill Clinton met with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to get donations for his Foundation.

Uribe meets with Bill Clinton
http://colombiareports.com/uribe-meets-with-ex-us-president-bill-clinton/

Bill Clinton, ex-president of the United States and husband of the current U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, met with Colombian president Alvaro Uribe on Wednesday in search of resources for the reconstruction of Haiti.

~snip~

While his wife is on a diplomatic tour of various Latin American countries, ex-president Clinton is using the opportunity to raise money for Haiti’s reconstruction following the devastating earthquake that happened there in January of this year. The money is being raised through Clinton’s own charity, the Clinton Foundation.

Clinton will also be taking a look at various projects in Colombia that the Clinton Foundation has helped fund while visiting the country.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Wow. Musical funds. Had no idea the Clinton Foundation both takes, gives money from,to Colombia.

Had noticed for years they've both been very close, for some reason, to that country, and it never made sense, considering how democratic Colombia is NOT. Damn.

Thanks for some illumination here.

[Jitter65]

10. The global financial crisis would be solved overnight if each country had a non-corrupt government

and all that money was frozen and returned the rightful citizens.