"The Shakira case is the best example of how the Spanish Tax Agency extorts. Over 500 people have contacted us, ordinary citizens who pay their taxes, self-employed individuals trying to make a living. None of them have the financial means to litigate against Hacienda for 10 years like the singer. Hacienda treats citizens as suspects, focusing mainly on individuals with limited resources or middle-class, who cannot afford to litigate for years and prefer to give in to extortion," he explains.
Lawyer Robert Ross Amsterdam (New York, 1956) has received the ruling from the National Court absolving Colombian artist Shakira of the tax fraud charges brought by the Tax Agency with "satisfaction." "This case demonstrates they behave like a mafia solely seeking to fill the government's coffers at the expense of treating citizens as criminals," explains the founder and managing partner of Amsterdam & Partners LLP, based in Washington and London, to Crónica.
The ruling states that Hacienda was wrong in determining that the singer had her tax residence in Spain in 2011 and had to pay 55 million euros in taxes and "very serious" penalties for defrauding the Personal Income Tax (IRPF) and the Wealth Tax. The public treasury must refund Shakira that amount plus late payment interest, totaling over 60 million. "The tax office's only concern is increasing its revenues without considering the negative impact or how many citizens they destroy along the way," he emphasizes.
The ruling caught Amsterdam with a generously sized cigar in hand, in the midst of promoting the book Hacienda and the dual state, which he co-authored with Christopher Wales, a British expert in fiscal policy and former head of Hacienda in Tony Blair's government. He also smoked another cigar from Nicaraguan brand El Jefe when presenting the work in Madrid.
"Don't mind the Russian agents at the other table. They came along with the Jews and the Chinese, adding to the party," he jokes in the gardens of the Rosewood Villa Magna hotel in the capital. The veteran international lawyer jests about the accusations from National Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, considering him "a destabilizing element," a defender of "who knows who" providing "not a single piece of evidence, not a single document." "In Spain, no one would dare launch such a fierce attack without presenting a document," they say. They also highlight his presence in the files of pedophile and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
"I don't take them seriously. In the Epstein case, I believe I was the only one who rejected him. I was the only one who went and told Epstein no. So I have no problem with that or with him. I've been through three divorces, so my track record has been tested many times. I've been banned from entering eight countries, arrested, and investigated by the secret police from who knows how many parts of the world. At a very high economic cost, though," he says.
Amsterdam recalls when in 2013 he faced the United Nations in defense of Dr. Georges Tadonki, a senior UN official who was dismissed after reporting the humanitarian crisis and cholera in Zimbabwe. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) intimidated and terminated his services, prioritizing their political relationship with Robert Mugabe's regime. Amsterdam achieved a historic victory at the United Nations Dispute Tribunal and won the 2013 Global Pro Bono Dispute Award from The American Lawyer magazine. "I received global recognition, but I lost my partner and my wife for working so many weeks voluntarily and without financial compensation," he confesses.
Amsterdam graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton University (Ottawa) in 1975 and obtained his Law degree from Queen's University (Kingston) in 1978. He was admitted to the Canadian Bar Association in 1980, the year he opened Amsterdam & Peroff with his friend Dean Peroff, focusing on international litigation and emerging markets.
Looking ahead, Amsterdam focuses on technology. "With artificial intelligence and without the necessary safeguards, the Spanish Tax Agency will become a terminal cancer. It will be like the novel 1984: a huge problem that will not respect citizens' economic rights," he predicts. He adopts a more philosophical tone to express his sadness at the "insularity" to which citizenship has anchored. "All we do is read people we already agree with on social media. We don't listen to other viewpoints, we don't see different angles. That's why an idiot can come and say that I am a destabilizer or something," he criticizes.
Amsterdam, who has repeatedly faced Putin and Chávez, is clear: "Taxation is political. Hacienda's big fraud is presenting the suppression of rights as something technical. I've seen it in Russia and other countries: to confront opposition leaders, they do it through taxes. When they want to oppress and screw you over, they tell you it's all technical."
The lawyer visited the USSR in 1973, "as a child," and says he witnessed "totalitarianism firsthand" there. In 2005, he was arrested in Moscow after his client, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, CEO of the Yukos oil company, was sentenced to prison. "When I was arrested at two in the morning by Putin's order, I didn't know if I was going to die. There were a bunch of KGB agents trying to take me who knows where. It wasn't legal, and luckily, lawyer Karinna Muskalenko rushed to my hotel to defend me. In contrast, in Spain, when I confront Hacienda over Human Rights, I am alone. I ask for help from lawyers here, and they say, 'If I help you, they will inspect my family and my clients,'" he criticizes.
He cites Spanish tax advisors as an example, who criticized the critical tone of Hacienda and the dual state. "These are things they've told me in Uganda or Tanzania, but I didn't expect it in Spain, a European and modern country. The book should have been written by Spaniards. It shouldn't be two foreigners telling what's happening. They want to please Hacienda, but they should be ashamed," he asserts.
Amsterdam believes that "any incentive that makes an inspector have an economic interest in screwing over the citizen is corrupt and immoral" and advocates for Hacienda to "be incorporated into the Ministry of Economy," ending a model where it takes 20 years to win a battle against the tax office. "To fight against that, public opinion is key. I'm older, and if things continue this way, by the time these issues reach the courts, I'll be dead, and my children retired. But after half a century of practice, the meaning of my life is to defend the causes that matter to me. And so I will continue," he concludes.