To secret away ill gotten wealth is ruining not only one's peace of mind but also others' down the road. It is an act of great disservice.
Now there are avenues to enjoy our prosperity & invest legally. There are many ways to accumulate wealth by straight forward means. Some are obsessed with accumulation, so be it as long as it is by fair means.
But we should have a rule of law enforced to catch the culprits who loot & plunder. The above article mantions huge funds in safe havens. Some of them who stashed away these funds should have had a misearable end knowing too late the funds will never go to the intended persons or they themselves found these as a burden.
The best way for a good govt will be to have a carrot & stick policy. We should always encourage wealth creation, otherwise all will look forward to a free lunches like in communist utopia, with the resourceful fleeing our shores. Communist China is having their own billionaires now & "to be rich is to be glorious" according to Deng Xiaoping.
As we are one of the hardest hit, can we get the act going? We can push for transparency and get the overseas banks to follow a law to declare the beneficiaries of all funds held, to their respective govts. Let us get the Human Rights groups & others to act in the interests of the poor people who have been deprived of a life, for no fault of theirs.
If we can get the list, we can expose many hypocrites shedding crocodile tears for aam aadmi!
no matter how much we discuss this issue here, it will be only read by very few people in our country. only those who have internet and out of them only those who come to rediff. everyone of us who commented on this will have some grief about the present situation. but after sometime we will get back to our own life and issues. India is a very big country and most diverse. No one man can make rules and implement them, not even any PM or president in the past. The ones who tried to do so got caught between winds of demolision. human psychology works differently, fools with intelligence will always rule the world and intelligent with foolishness will always be ruled by them. the second types will keep blaming first ones intelligently and will die foolishly. the first ones will keep taking the blame foolishly and will always survive intelligently. And about the conspiracy thing of western world. the countries with tax heavens are not the dominant developed nations. these are small developed countries providing services to accumulate banking wealth as one more source of revenues. some banks were set after world wars as a necessity to stash up unclaimed and looted wealth by the rich of those times.those banking laws are not specifically trimmed for developing countries, but the developed countries which were involved in war. the developing countries rich people took notice of this and started taking its advantage.and even if obama has introduced the bill, i wonder i works out 100
country's politicians represent the country itself.the real corruption starts from bottom. remember the way one got out of the traffic police's hands by bribing him. remember the business one runs by bribing the govt employees involved with the supply chain. even a small business violates many laws and bribes its way to settle up. when one stands in a queue, the way he/she tries to bribe in to get ahead.the agents used while booking train tickets on jammed seasons. these are just few examples of everyday life. not all people do this, but maximum people have done this sometime in their life.almost all major corporations and business worldwide in developing/developed/communist run on corruption.if we want to take out corruption, we have to shutdown more than half of the democracy as almost all political parties in country are involved in corruption. are the better and clean people ready to grind till the roots of society and promote vigorously their vision and promises till grassroots level to compete in elections. for the common man from villages, its very hard to make them understand development and economics. politicians pump huge sums of money during elections to gain majority. why is money required to get votes? thats the way they bribe people to vote for them in way like providing free alcohols and cash. are the educated class of our country ready to go to grassroot levels to make them aware of how democracy works so as to not sell their vote??
Dear Sir, The article draws attention to this problem which has been in existence for a long time now. The need to stash money in tax havens is the insecurity in our lives that every Indian has to contend with.The mindset of the older generation is to provide for the warewithal of the succeeding generations.This increases the hunger for hoarding wealth. The selective application of laws,constantly changing tax laws,sweeping punitive powers to the tax authorities,the ambience of fraud and misrepresentation, numerous laws that makes anyone an offender makes life very turbulent and uncertain. Add to it the huge Elections Industry- the largest money hungry business that runs on unaccounted money makes a heady combination for the possessors of ill gotten wealth. The problem of citizen participation in removal of these tendencies calls for very different means. We cannot ask our Govt to unearth stashed wealth but we can ensure that we have a stable tax regime for at least a 3 year period. We can ask our Govt to remove useless and badly drafted laws. We can definitly ask our Govt to provide an extent of money lying in the various tax havens. We can also put diplomatic pressure to provide the amount at the same rate of interest back in our in our country as that provided to the depositors. We can also ask the Govts of these tax havens to open up unused accounts or the moneys lying in dead accounts. And of course bring about some international laws to deal with this issue.
RE:We've every right to get this money back to our country...
by Indian on Apr 16, 2008 10:19 AM
under act of RTI(Right To Information) we can ask government to do investigation and let public know about those accounts and its holder..
If all the parties are involved and have their own benefit then it can never be surfaced. It is just like the OBS quota, eventhough few do not agree to it, they can not oppose to it.
RE:Fact
by Steve Andrews on Apr 16, 2008 08:25 AM
I bet Sharad Pawar, Arjun Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and Mayawati's will have the maximum in the Tax Havens that belongs to India
US has been exhorting others for transparency. We should also seize the chance to put up a strong case regarding these accounts with UN, World Bank & IMF etc.
There is no authentic data except some figures mentioned around about the size of the funds. As the returns are much less if held in off shore havens, most of the funds might have already been channelled to even home countries by various holdings.
Despite the efforts by many poor countries, none of the huge amounts have been traced. Recent cases are Marcos & Suharto, maybe due to banami holdings. As we are supposed to be the worst hit, we should make every action to bell the cat. Can we get our MPs to do their part? Decades ago the rich had some reasons as the tax rates were sky high, but not anymore.
Most of the illegal funds might have been through cuts held overseas on govt contracts. Even US companies indulge in these, but investigated and reported. For us, our actions are stymied by politics, with all having an axe to grind.
The irony is most of the funds die along with the criminals as they cannot trust anybody. We start with basic food & roof over our heads. Then greed sets in. It becomes an obsession. One tends to run away from our friends and deal with strangers. The ironical part is these ill-gotten wealth ends up in the hands of total strangers.
We should leave enough for our children to do something, but not too much to do nothing! A cry in the wilderness?
If politicans across all parties are involved, then you can be rest assured, they will not take any initiative.
Concerned citizens have to start a project focused on this subject and work till success is achieved in getting back the loot and exposing the thieves.
