The Taxcast

When's the next financial crisis? We look at offshore and the trillion dollar derivatives market. Plus: we discuss how Mexico's trying to force multinational companies to pay more tax, why recent market madness originating in China shows we need a Financial Transactions Tax more than ever, and why the recent election by a landslide of opposition leader in Britain's Labour party Jeremy Corbyn could be a game-changer.

Sun, sea and tax: the Taxcast goes to Mexico and looks at how multinational tourism operates there. Plus: why Luxembourg is printing euros like there's no tomorrow, Brazil offers its tax dodgers an amnesty, and we ask how much longer 'emerging economies' and other countries left out of the reform of global tax rules will put up with it.

In an extended Taxcast special we look at the crisis in Greece and ask whatever happened to European unity? Plus we discuss the European Parliament's vote to make multinational coporations report their activities on a public, country-by-country basis, a push to give poorer countries a say in global tax rule-making fails after three days of bullying in Addis Ababa, BUT Tax Inspectors Without Borders gets the green light. Plus more scandal and unique analysis.

Racketeering, money laundering and bribery in international football: the FIFA scandal demonstrates everything that's wrong with global finance and attitudes to business. Also: the EU Commission releases a laughable tax haven blacklist with some glaring omissions, we put FIFA's auditors KPMG under the spotlight, and Walmart is exposed for paying minimal taxes.

In the May 2015 Taxcast: Do our politicians believe in the societies they serve or not? The Taxcast looks at making the tax returns of our elected representatives public, and the inspirational achievement of journalist Umar Cheema of the Centre for Investigative Reporting in making Pakistan only the fourth country in the world to publish the tax returns of its Parliamentarians. Also: how the British general election demonstrates political capture by financial interests; libertarian paradise - the world's newest tax haven; and is Singapore trying to shut down reporting on its tax haven status?

How just are our tax systems towards women? One Texan husband did the sums on what his stay-at-home wife's unpaid work was really worth in monetary terms. Plus: one of the USA's biggest corporations (and tax avoiders) is repatriating billions from offshore and re-focusing on good old manufacturing again, and remember how the UK Prime Minister was 'leading the world' in transparency measures not so long ago? We discuss a letter a former Cayman Islands lobbyist and Conservative peer wrote to reassure the tax haven that it was an empty gesture to distract from the proposed Financial Transaction Tax.

Democracy for sale: how our politics are heavily reliant on tax haven-friendly donors. Also, we ask: Why is HSBC shutting down offshore accounts in Jersey? Are we in the final few years of the corporate income tax? Is Australia's exempting of big companies from new transparency rules a joke? Plus more scandal and analysis you won't find anywhere else.

Just what does a bank have to do to lose its licence?! We look at the fall out from HSBCLeaks and ask how can we genuinely tackle criminality in global finance? Also: the latest research on crimes and fines in banking; why a recent threat to have UK Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories blacklisted won't exactly have them shaking in their shoes; plus more scandal and unique analysis.

How offshore is ruining the 'Beautiful Game' - the Taxcast scrutinises football's own goal. Also: how banks with criminal convictions are being allowed to continue to handle our money, how people may be allowed to apply for anonymity in the UK's register of beneficial owners to be introduced in 2016, and the meeting of the world's most powerful in that bastion of transparency, Davos, Switzerland. Plus more scandal and unique analysis.

In the December 2014 Taxcast: how mafia is corrupting democracy at the heart of Europe in Italy's capital city of Rome. Also, the #LuxLeaks whistleblower is arrested and makes his first public statements on why he did it, the UK Chancellor's 'Google Tax', is the EU Commission President backing away from making a register of the real owners of copmpanies and trusts public? Plus more scandal and unique analysis.