Thursday, June 13, 2013

Clash of powers over top court power - CB

Clash of powers over top court power

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A clash of powers is taking shape over the Puerto Rico Supreme Court’s decision to shoot down a new law that blunted its powers to take up cases pending in lower courts.
The 6-3 ruling declaring Law 18 unconstitutional fell along partisan lines within the nine-member court. The majority opinion was backed by all of the justices named by a former New Progressive Party governor. The minority judges, including Chief Justice Federico Hernández Denton, were all appointed to the top court by Popular Democratic Party governors.
The law’s author, Senate President Eduardo Bhatia called the decision “judicial nonsense” and said the majority justices “are doing whatever they feel like.”
The PDP lawmaker and Gov. Alejandro García Padilla, who heads the commonwealth party, have signaled a new measure will be filed, approved and inked into law.
The Law 18 bill was approved by the upper chamber in an 11 to 7 vote before clearing the House and being signed into law by García Padilla late last month. The NPP Senate delegation and Puerto Rican Independence Party Sen. María de Lourdes Santiago voted against.
Santiago was critical of the process leading up to the vote, saying the bill wasn’t brought to public hearings and that the Senate only sought input from two government agencies. One of them, the Courts Administration, backed the bill in general terms. The other, the Justice Department, did not submit an opinion, the PIP senator told NotiCel.
Santiago noted that other interested parties, including the Puerto Rico Bar Association or the island’s law school, weren’t consulted on the measure.
The majority justices echoed those concerns and said the true aim of Law 18 “as expressed openly by its author and evidenced by the rushed and uneven passage” was to clip the top court’s wings and sidestep the revision of cases against the government.
The court’s decision came in cased filed on behalf of hundreds of government employees challenging the constitutionality of the García Padilla administration’s pension reform, which cuts benefits to current and future retirees.
The plaintiffs had asked the top court to take the case up directly from the lower court, arguing that the looming implementation of Law 18 would impede it from doing so. That led to the justice’s examination of the constitutionality of Law 18 itself.
The measure focused case reviews at the appellate level, limiting broadened powers that the Supreme Court acquired a decade ago under judicial reform. The top court had used the authority to expedite or fast-track cases including the so-called “pivazos” votes that decided the 2004 gubernatorial election.
García Padilla’s comments after the court ruling Tuesday point to the clash of powers between the executive and legislative branches on one side and the judicial branch on the other.
“As governor of Puerto Rico, I am called on to protect the democratic principles covered by the island Constitution, including the balance of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government,” García Padilla said in a statement Tuesday. “Soon we will be filing another measure to determine by law, as required by the Constitution, under what circumstances the Supreme Court can take up first jurisdiction in a case.”
Ratcheting up the rhetoric during a press conference on Wednesday, the governor said the majority justices don’t understand the island Constitution.
“If they need me to explain it them in terms of rice and beans I will,” he said. “If they still don’t get it I’ll explain it in terms of baby food.”
García Padilla said he took an oath to protect Puerto Rico’s Constitution from enemies from “outside and inside” the island.
The law would serve to give the PDP more control over the Supreme Court, which currently is comprised of six justices appointed by NPP governors and three appointed by PDP governors.
Former Gov. Luis Fortuño enacted legislation in 2010 increasing the number of judges on the Supreme Court to nine from seven.
That legislation was quickly approved by the then-NPP-controlled Legislature after the Supreme Court requested the increase in its membership by two members, a process spelled out in the Constitution. The petition cited the need to cover the workload of the top court, which at the close of the last fiscal year had 792 pending cases.
The court expansion has been criticized as unnecessary and a partisan attempt by the NPP to expand its political clout. PDP lawmakers and other critics contended the expansion is a simple attempt to stack the court with NPP appointees.
In his four years in office, Fortuño tapped six justices to the top court: Rafael L. Martínez Torres, Mildred Pabón Charneco, Erick Kolthoff Caraballo, Edgardo Rivera García, Roberto Filiberti and Luis Estrella.
Since the creation of commonwealth in 1952, the Supreme Court had a majority of justices appointed by PDP governors until 2010. Chief Justice Federico Hernández Denton, named to the top court during the Hernández Colón administration in 1985 and later promoted to chief justice by former Gov. Sila Calderón, is one of the three remaining PDP-appointed justices. The other two — Annabelle Rodríguez and Liana Fiol Matta — were appointed by Calderón.
The three justices named by PDP governors have not always decided in favor of PDP administrations in court cases involving the government. The four justices appointed by Fortuño have so far sided with the sitting administration’s views.
The process to hike the number of justices formally began when the NPP-appointed justices approved a resolution asking the Legislature to amend the 2003 judicial branch charter law to increase from six to eight the number of associate justices. That resolution, which argued that more justices are needed to handle a heavy caseload, passed 4-3 along partisan lines.
The action marked the first time in the island’s history that a resolution to change the makeup of the Court was approved in a divided vote and without debate on the bench.
The PDP-appointed justices argued in dissenting positions that the expansion was unnecessary, arbitrary and rammed through without substantive debate.
A request to change the size of the court coming from the Supreme Court itself is the process mandated by the Constitution of Puerto Rico. Article V, Section 3 of the Constitution requires that the number of justices of the Supreme Court only be altered through a request of the court itself.
The court was expanded from five to seven members shortly after commonwealth was created. In 1961 it was widened to nine justices after the judicial branch charter law was amended to allow the court to work in panels...

Taxes and Puerto Rico – A Complex Mix - by hadeninteractive

Taxes and Puerto Rico – A Complex Mix 

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Puerto Rico has a complex tax situation. Here are some examples of the tax quandary that is Puerto Rico:
  • People who live in Puerto Rico for at least six months and a day do not pay income taxes on income earned in Puerto Rico. However, they do pay income tax on wages earned on the mainland. So, for example, a student who studies at a college in Virginia and comes home to Puerto Rico for holidays will pay income taxes on the money she earns at her after-school job . An actor who spends 27 weeks making and promoting a movie in Puerto Rico and is paid by a production company there will not pay Federal income taxes on those earnings even though he spent the rest of the year in his luxury penthouse in New York. Both pay social security taxes.
  • A Federal judge in Puerto Rico has to pay Federal taxes on his or her income, but a local judge for the Puerto Rican commonwealth does not.
  • Very wealthy individuals can avoid paying capital gains taxes on stocks and bonds after establishing residence in Puerto Rico.
  • U.S. companies keep a whopping 60% of their income, some $1.7 trillion, overseas to avoid taxes, according to a 2012 Senate subcommittee report. Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, but for the purposes of this tax dodge, the island counts as “overseas.” So, for example, Microsoft Operations Puerto Rico (MOPR) is the company in charge of all retail operations in North America. MOPR belongs to a Bermuda-based company which belongs to a company with operations in Ireland which in turn belongs to Microsoft. 47% of the income from MOPR’s sales in the U.S. go to Puerto Rico, where it is taxed at just over 1% rather than the 35% Microsoft would pay if they sold software directly from their U.S. corporation. Read more about this convoluted situation.
  • While corporate taxation is tiny in Puerto Rico (because the local government exempts State-based companies investing in the territory from most of the official tax), sales taxes are robust and increasing for items sold within Puerto Rico. Earlier this year, Puerto Rico sold $333 in short-term debt backed by sales tax revenues, so there is certainly motivation for Puerto Rico (like many states) to increase these revenues. The current sales tax rate is 7%. Five U.S. states have 7% tax rates and California has a 7.5% state sales tax; five states have no sales tax, and other rates range from 2.9 % to the aforementioned 7.5%. In other words, Puerto Rico, which has a much lower per capita income than any state in the Union, has one of the highest sales tax rates. Governor Garcia Padilla wants to lower the rate to 6.5% — but remove exemptions and extend the taxes to services, so that some Puerto Rico purchases will be taxed repeatedly on the way from raw materials to end consumer.
The U.S. tax system is unwieldy and many of the states have their own little quirks...

Requests by billionaires eligible for benefits filed in Puerto Rico continue to flow at a rate of 23 applications received in April and 27 in May, said the Minister of Economic Development and Commerce (DEC), Alberto Bacus

Llegarán más multimillonarios - El Nuevo Día

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Las solicitudes de inversionistas multimillonarios del exterior que buscan acogerse a beneficios por radicarse en Puerto Rico siguen fluyendo, a razón de 23 solicitudes recibidas en abril y 27 en mayo, indicó el secretario de Desarrollo Económico y Comercio (DEC), Alberto Bacó.
En una charla ante la Asociación de Ex Aumnos de Administración de Empresas de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Bacó indicó que “estamos atrayendo residentes de altos ingresos, de alta preparación” para que inviertan localmente.
En el complejo santurcino “Ciudadela se va a empezar a construir la próxima torre, por una persona que de su propio capital, sin pedir prestado está invirtiendo en Puerto Rico y se muda a Puerto Rico este sábado bajo las leyes de relocalización y exenciones contributivas a aquellas personas que están dispuestas a relocalizarse”, afirmó el secretario.
Bacó identificó al inversionista como Nicholas Prouty, presidente Putnam Bridge Investments. Agregó que Prouty compró también con su dinero la Marina Puerto del Rey, en Fajardo. Dijo que dicho inversionista ya ha invertido aquí unos $200 millones. Para luego indicar que Prouty ha expresado que “tiene grandes planes para el área” de los terrenos de la Base Roosevelt Roads, de Ceiba.
“Me he reunido con un sinnúmero de inversionistas en la oficina (de PRIDCO) de Nueva York, cuya directora les dará seguimento”, agregó.
“Ya yo he tocado billonarios. No son gente que van a un banco a pedir prestado, son gente que tiene su capital para invertir”, afirmó. Este movimiento se da por la ley 20 y ley 22 que promueven establecer servicios desde el extranjero y se aplica a individuos también. “Estas leyes están resultando ser un excelente instrumento”, aseguró Bacó. Manifestó que “hay jóvenes que ya se han mudado”.
Puerto Rico obtuvo la exposición de Wall Street Journal y de New York Times que criticaron que el millonario John Paulson, se mudaría a Puerto Rico, lo cual no se dio.
Pero Bacó dijo que se reunió la semana pasada con Paulson y su equipo y le informaron que los incentivos ofrecidos en la Isla “son un instrumento poderoso” para todo el que depende de inversiones pasivas o semi pasivas. Manifestó que dicho equipo ha mostrado interés en adquirir deuda de dos proyectos y en adquirir edificios del gobierno.
Bacó añadió que se han propuesto dos enmiendas a la Ley 22 a los fines de que los que se beneficien puedan testar bajo las leyes de su estado de origen siempre que lo hagan antes de su mudanza a la Isla.
Otra enmienda sería para bajar de 15 años a 10 años el periodo que los individuos beneficiados deberán haber vivido fuera de Puerto Rico...

"Puerto Rico is in a dreadful state of bankruptcy; it is like paying with credit card when the family is already in the bankruptcy court," said Senate President Eduardo Bhatia

Incólume el Gobierno con los impuestos

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Aunque hablaron por horas, fue muy poco lo que pudo decir el liderato político del país sobre el futuro económico de Puerto Rico durante el foro Por Puerto Rico.
Durante su participación los presidentes de Cámara y Senado tomaron posturas defensivas recalcando que, con los impuestos acordados para cuadrar el presupuesto, están haciendo lo mejor para Puerto Rico. Reiteraron que la mayor parte de los problemas los heredaron.
“Puerto Rico se encuentra en una situación de quiebra terrible, es como pagar una tarjeta de crédito cuando la familia suya ya está en el tribunal de quiebras”, dijo el presidente del Senado, Eduardo Bhatia, quien no pudo responder cómo actuarían si el Tribunal Supremo termina por invalidar la polémica reforma del Sistema de Retiro.
Explicó que las casas acreditadoras le dijeron a Puerto Rico que tenía que hacer cuatro cosas: reorganizar la deuda de Retiro; tener un presupuesto balanceado; empezar a pagar las deudas; empezar a hacer crecer la economía.
“De esas cuatro cosas, entendíamos hasta ayer que teníamos tres que ya habíamos atendido. ¿Qué pasaría si el Tribunal Supremo declara inconstitucional la Ley de Retiro? Obviamente tira todo ese trabajo por la borda. Si el Tribunal (Supremo) tiene otras agendas... eso sería terrible para Puerto Rico”, dijo Bhatia, admitiendo que no hay un plan alterno.
Bhatia añadió su molestia con que la gente se refiriera a la reforma de Retiro como el “retirazo”.
El presidente de la Cámara, Jaime Perelló, tampoco fue específico sobre los detalles del presupuesto y su impacto en la economía.
Dijo que antes de tomar las decisiones sobre nuevos recaudos se escuchó al sector privado. “Por eso prácticamente se eliminó (el impuesto) ‘business to business’, excepto algunas áreas. En el caso de la Contribución Especial Nacional, o la Patente Nacional, se hizo de una manera para proteger al pequeño y mediano comerciante”.
Perelló aseguró que “estamos en una transición hacia a tener un sistema contributivo que realmente responda a los intereses del pueblo puertorriqueño y a nuestra capacidad de desarrollo económico”. Sin embargo, no se atrevió a poner fechas a esas medidas de “transición”.
Finalmente, fue el senador Ángel Rosa el que pareció dar una idea más clara del futuro inmediato. “Hemos pasado la sesión (legislativa) distribuyendo escasez. Es responsabilidad de todos. Si las mujeres pudieran parir sin dolor, pues lo escogían, pero no se puede. Lo que Puerto Rico tiene que hacer va a doler, y le va a doler a todo el mundo”...

"El Pueblo espera más de sus líderes" - Pedro Pierluisi

Pierluisi critica al gobernador - El Nuevo Día

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10:05 a.m.
Luego de las expresiones realizadas por el mandatario sobre los 6 jueves del Supremo
El presidente del Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) y comisionado residente, Pedro Pierluisi, cuestionó la capacidad del gobernador Alejandro García Padilla, quien ayer tildó de “enemigos de Puerto Rico” a los 6 jueces de mayoría del Tribunal Supremo.
“Ese no es el tipo de expresión y actitud que el pueblo espera de su gobernador. No puede ser que tildemos de enemigo al que tiene un criterio distinto al nuestro. Se le hace un flaco servicio a Puerto Rico cuando se baja el debate y el discurso a ese nivel”, afirmó el representante de la Isla ante el Congreso estadounidense en declaraciones escritas.
García Padilla tronó contra el Tribunal Supremo, luego de que los jueces asociados que conforman la mayoría declararan inconstitucional la Ley 18 que determinaba la competencia del Tribunal para intervenir en casos radicados en tribunales de menor jerarquía.
Entre las duras críticas hechas por Pierluisi a su contraparte política por el Partido Popular Democrático está un recordatorio de que el puesto de gobernador “requiere ecuanimidad y madurez y la capacidad de ser firme sin de dejar de ser respetuoso, sobre todo con los que no piensan igual”.
“El gobernador es quien tiene la responsabilidad de fomentar la economía en Puerto Rico y velar por nuestro crédito. No se puede empezar a insultar y a echar culpas a otros”, agregó.
Asimismo, Pierluisi recordó que existe la separación de poderes para que los derechos del pueblo le sean protegidos y el sistema electoral para que el pueblo escoja a sus gobernantes.
“Esas virtudes de nuestro sistema democrático podrían estar amenazadas por un Gobierno que en los primeros seis meses de su administración ha demostrado una obsesión por controlar de manera dictatorial a todas las instituciones del gobierno, incluyendo al Tribunal Supremo, la Universidad de Puerto Rico, las corporaciones públicas y hasta las casas acreditadoras. ¿Hasta dónde vamos a llegar? El Pueblo espera más de sus líderes”, sentenció.

Making music...

Calle 13’s Pérez, Assange in tune - Caribbean Business

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Puerto Rican rapper René Pérez is teaming up with Wikileaks founder on a song about media manipulation.
Pérez, the singer known as “Residente” in the Grammy Award-winning duo Calle 13, met with Assange at the Ecuador Embassy in London, where the Wikileaks boss has been hiding out to avoid arrest in a sexual crime case in Sweden.
“Hello FBI! Here I am with Julian #Assange founder...

Edith Fischer - piano with Orquesta Filarmónica de Santiago - Max Valdés: Mozart Piano concerto 20 D Minor K466

Mozart Piano concerto 20 D Minor K466 - Edith Fischer

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Uploaded on Jun 4, 2011
Edith Fischer - piano Orquesta Filarmónica de Santiago - Max Valdés

¡Bendición, Raymond!

¡Bendición, Raymond!

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Estoy segura de que ni el propio Raymond se imaginó en lo que se convertiría el hoy llamado Da Vida...

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Jennifer López: Latinos se dan cuenta de su poder

UN decolonization panel taking up PR

» UN decolonization panel taking up PR
12/06/13 16:49 from Caribbean Business - More Local News
UN decolonization panel taking up PR Issued: June 10, 2013 The United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization will again discuss Puerto Rico’s political status as its annual session kicks off Monday in New... Reef Worlds dives deep int..

» Renuncia el subdirector de la CIA
12/06/13 16:38 from Primera Hora : Noticias
Morell fue criticado por decir que el programa de interrogatorios de la CIA produjo cierta información útil. 


Renuncia el subdirector de la CIA

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El subdirector de la CIA, Michael Morell, renunció el miércoles, tras manejar la renuncia del ex director de la CIA David Petraeus por una relación extramarital y defender la actuación de la agencia en el ataque a un puesto diplomático de Estados Unidos en Bengasi, Libia.
Morell no fue seleccionado por el presidente Barack Obama para el máximo puesto de la CIA, quien eligió a su asesor de contraterrorismo, John Brennan. Este anunció la salida de Morrell el miércoles.
Brennan dijo que Morell será remplazado por Avril Haines, actual asistente adjunta del presidente y asesora jurídica del Consejo Nacional de Seguridad.
Morell aceptó la petición del Departamento de Estado de eliminar la referencia a los milicianos en un polémico memorándum de puntos de debate sobre el ataque en Libia.
Morell también fue criticado por decir que el programa de interrogatorios de la CIA produjo cierta información útil.

» Caribbean scene at Voorhees Farm Market this weekend - Cherry Hill Courier Post
12/06/13 16:06 from caribbean - Google News
Caribbean scene at Voorhees Farm Market this weekend Cherry Hill Courier Post Vendors wearing leis and Caribbean shirts will serve Jersey Fresh produce including fruits, vegetables, exotic produce and herbs; locally produced wines; fresh b..



» Statehood Bill Gets Most Public Votes on U.S. House Website on All House Bills
12/06/13 15:59 from Puerto Rico Report
Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi’s bill on statehood for the territory has won more endorsements on U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s Website for registering public support for legislation than an..

» Puerto Rico News Review | Shared NewsLinks
12/06/13 15:57 from PUERTO RICO NEWS
Puerto Rico News Review Mike Nova's Shared NewsLinks - Puerto Rico News and Journals: http://prnewslinks.blogspot.com/ -