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Jaya
Jagannath,
Indian economy has never been stripped
of its wealth so much even during Moghuls and Britishers as it is
being since our Independence. Indian politicians with $1456 billion
or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the
world COMBINED ( This amount is more than sufficient to take over
and buy all software companies on the earth at once ). Public loot since 1947. The statistics is as below.
India---- $1456 billion
Russia----- $470 billion
UK-------- $390 billion
Ukraine --- $100 billion
China------ $96 billion
It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind -- the loot of
common man since 1947 by their brethren occupying public office. It
has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some
businessmen. The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder,
everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear.
What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours
has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in
some of the world's best known tax heavens. And to that extent the
Indian economy has been stripped of its wealth. Ordinary Indians may
not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what
are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens.
However, one may well be aware of 'Swiss bank accounts,' the
shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from
developing countries into rich developed ones.
In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to
be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By
allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century,
the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce
capital from the developing countries to the rich. In March 2005,
the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding
demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held
offshore by rich individuals across the globe. The findings
estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from
some 70 tax havens.
Further, augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker -- in his
widely celebrated book titled Capitalism's Achilles Heel: Dirty
Money and How to Renew the Free Market System -- estimates that at
least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the
West since the mid-1970s. It is further estimated by experts that
one per cent of the world's population holds more than 57 per cent
of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax
havens. How much of this is from India is anybody's guess. What is
to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in
these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt
means. Naturally the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in
such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the
term 'tax havens' suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not
trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the
secrecy associated with these bank accounts?
Regards
Nilachakra
http://nilachakra.50webs.com
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