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In 2017, @Forbes reported that there were 3 billionaires in Colombia, with a net worth of USD 11 billion, 3,4 billion, and 2,6 billion, respectively. However, either Forbes vastly overestimated their wealth or all of them were lying to the Colombian tax administration.
Interestingly, Colombian tax returns require tax payers to report their net worth, including assets held anywhere in the world. So, in principle, these billionaires should be reporting this figure to the tax administration, @DIANColombia.
Last year, two Colombian researchers, Luis Jorge Garay and Jorge Espitia, had unparalleled access to administrative tax data, publishing a book with their findings. This is their book. https://libreria.desdeabajo.info/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=188
Page 86 has a couple of interesting data points: the minimum and maximum values of tax payers' net worth. @DIANColombia has for years restricted researchers' access to anonimized microdata arguing privacy concerns, so it is rather surprising that they would share this.
It's surprising because now we know that the lowest net worth in Colombia was $0 (no surprise), but we also have an official, legally binding figure for the net worth of the richest person in Colombia in 2017: COP 4,6 trillion, or, USD 1,5 billion at the Dec. 2017 exchange rate
USD 1,5 billion was around half the net worth of the third richest Colombian in 2017, according to @Forbes . But it was the net worth of the richest Colombian according to what he told the tax administration @DIANColombia
These are the profiles of these billionaires on @forbes in case you want to take a look at the historical estimates of their net worth.
https://www.forbes.com/profile/luis-carlos-sarmiento/?list=billionaires#1ef21fa71fc7
https://www.forbes.com/profile/carlos-ardila-lulle/?list=billionaires#6993b4985750 https://www.forbes.com/profile/jaime-gilinski-bacal/#304576323db4
https://www.forbes.com/profile/luis-carlos-sarmiento/?list=billionaires#1ef21fa71fc7
https://www.forbes.com/profile/carlos-ardila-lulle/?list=billionaires#6993b4985750 https://www.forbes.com/profile/jaime-gilinski-bacal/#304576323db4
So: should @Forbes revise its estimates of their net worth, @kanyewest style? Or are they not real billionaires like @kanyewest is? Did @DIANColombia mess up the information it gave to these academic researchers?
This matters for a couple of reasons. First, if Colombia's richest and most powerful are not being forthcoming to the tax administration, *someone* should look into that.
And it also matters because for years many public economists in Colombia have been trying to get properly anonymized data from @DIANColombia, like the @IRSnews gives researchers in the US, in order to do research on inequality in one of the world's most unequal countries.
We have offered technical assistance to properly anonymize tax data in order to carry out our research, and have been turned away many, many times. I don't work with the researchers who published this book, but I know they went to great lenghts to get the data.
They had to use political pressure from members of Congress, which forced @DIANColombia's hand. And this is what happens: you end up giving away sensitive data that you didn't need to reveal.
Again: someone should look into this. And I mean it kind of literally when I ask that you don't shoot the messenger.
