Create jobs and invest money in US for a faster Green Card

BANGALORE: If you don't want to wait years on end for a Green Card in the US, there is a quicker route - the EB5 immigration visa. But it comes with a rider, you have to create jobs and invest money in the US. The EB5 is an immigration visa that gets families a permanent Green Card in return for an investment of either $500,000 or $1 million and proof that the investment has created 10 direct or indirect jobs. It provides a short-cut to a conditional Green Card - a permanent resident card that allows an alien to live permanently in the US -- within a year of applying, which can take about three years to convert to a permanent one. "The programme facilitates foreign entrepreneurs' capital investment that creates or preserves US jobs by supporting the establishment of new commercial enterprises or assist troubled US-based businesses in economically distressed areas," Stephanie Ostapowich, public affairs officer, Office of Communications, Media Relations Division, US Citizenship and Immgration Services (USCIS) said. A Green Card through other visa categories can take up to several years. Recent reports by the National Foundation for American Policy, which tracks immigration data, show that getting a Green Card for Indians who have received a university degree from the US can even take up to 70 years given the large number of visa-seekers and the limited number of visas available. Indian Green Card seekers who have a degree from an American University need to apply in the EB3 visa category. THE PROSPECTS "Failure to retain these talented individuals in the United States means they will go to work for global firms in other countries or US businesses will need to place them abroad, pushing more work outside the United States," Stuart Anderson, the author of the report released earlier this month said. Though the EB5 visa was created by the Immigration Act of 1990, lack of awareness and the complexity of the investment has kept Green Card seekers away. Investment experts like Greg Wing, the managing director of Green Card Fund, have now recognised this as an option to help start-ups in the US get funds. However, things are changing with the visa gaining attention of both American businesses and government. Since the spectre of a global downturn resurfaced, Wing has been getting calls from businesses who would like to get EB5 funding several times a day. Which is also why Wing is now visiting Indian shores, to create awareness about the mechanism and raise millions of dollars from Indians in return for giving them a chance to live the American Dream. "Since the economy worsened, I have been getting several calls for this route of funding. I just tell most of them not possible that businesseses are too risky," he said. In the past 3 to four years the US government too has been promoting the EB5 visa actively by bringing in more clarity on regulations around the investments. Investment under the EB5 category can be made in any project in the US, across industries. Visa-seekers

can buy an existing business and run them, help troubled businesses, start their own business or give the money to regional centres like Wing's that can identify the projects and make the investment for them. Applicants get a temporary Green Card after applying for an EB5 visa and making the investment and this is converted to a permanent Green Card once the applicant can prove that the investment has created jobs.

Sudden Surge in Exports to Bahamas Raises Doubts

Triggers suspicion of over-invoicing to bring back undisclosed money under garb of normal cross-border trade
SMRITI SETH NEW DELHI

An amazing surge in Indias exports to the Bahamas has stoked the lingering suspicion that a slice of the countrys trades is sham transactions done to bring back money stashed in secret accounts with offshore banks. In just two years, exports to the Bahamas best known as a tax haven have shot up from $2.2 million in 2008-09 to $2.2 billion in 2010-11, according to commerce department data. The number in no way matches the data on the Bahamas global imports, which according to UNCTAD the global trade and investments monitoring agency was $2.8 billion in 2010. According to the CIA data base, India has only a 7.5% share in the Bahamas imports, which works out to about $200 million in 2010. The wide gap, some think, is more than sloppy statistics. This is just a way of bringing black money back into the economy when it needs to be converted into white money and used for other purposes such as investments, said

an economist on the committee appointed by the government to suggest ways to curb black money. This happens through export over-invoicing, which boils down to billing the overseas buyer $10 million for cargo that may be worth just $10,000. In such transactions, the buyer may be fictitious, or a shell or front company of the Indian exporter. Its a ploy to bring back undisclosed money under the garb of cross-border trade. Biswajit Dhar, a trade expert and director-general of RIS, a think tank, felt the government should be looking at these indicators of black money. They should also look at a detailed list of exporters Im sure some of them are fictitious, he said. The Bahamas is one of the jurisdictions to have signed a tax information exchange agreement with India. Some of the others include Bermuda, Isle of Man, British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands. As per the information exchange pact, the countries are required to share information if the other country has reasonable ground to believe that there has been a tax offence. Under the circumstances, Indian residents holding money in banks in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, may think its safer to either move their money to another destination or bring it back to India. Difficult to Explain Jump Nassau is a favourite tax haven for many wealthy Americans. While the Bahamas, a nation of 29 islands, is also a transshipment point, its difficult to explain the sudden jump in exports from India. During April-December 2010, Indias exports to the Bahamas were up 217% to $1.6 billion from the year-ago period. For the last few months, analysts have raised eyebrows on Indias export numbers. More so, at a time the US and Europe the two biggest markets are facing slowdown. While some have attributed this to inept data handling, a recent report by Kotak Institutional Equities Research has harped on the possibility of black money inflow. The report, authored by Sanjeev Prasad, Sunita Baldawa and Amit Kumar, draws no definitive conclusions, but said, We can attribute some part of these gaps to data limitations but the large difference between official data and our observations begs a better and more sophisticated explanation. It highlights how export data of major engineering companies, including automobiles and metals, does not match the steep increase in official export numbers. For instance, according to official data, engineering exports grew 79% year-on-year in 2010-11 while the export numbers compiled from respective figures reported by BSE 500 show a mere 11% increase. This gap could be as much as $28 billion. If this cannot be explained as a miracle export story of small, unsung companies, then the data mismatch casts a shadow on the GDP growth. Some like Sajjid Chinoy, JPMorgans India economist, feels the concern relating to over-invoicing of exports could be overblown. Chinoy, who compared the official export figures with port traffic data, recently told The Economist magazine that the conspiracy theories are flimsy. But Nisha Taneja, who specialises in international trade at the Indian Council for

Research and International Economic Relations, said the large discrepancy (in the data on export to the Bahamas) is a clear indicator of black money, even though more investigation is needed. The biggest component of Indias exports to the Bahamas in 2010-11 was mineral fuels, at $1.9 billion, according to government data. Experts say the government should improve its monitoring mechanisms to ensure lawful shipment of goods, economists believe. In order to curb the flow of black money through the overinvoicing route, the government should ensure that the value of exported goods on paper matches the actual value, said Abhijit Das, director of the WTO centre at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. This would require stepping up of efforts by customs authorities, he said. Ajay Sahai, director-general of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, said it is unlikely that formal channels could be used misused to this extent. I dont think this difference can be attributed to black money. It could be because of different accounting mechanisms used by the Bahamas. Any dealer in black money would use more profitable ways like the hawala.