#37 The Offshore Game: football's own goal
#36 Mafia Capitale: corrupting democracy
#38 What does a bank have to do to lose its licence?

In the January 2015 Taxcast: 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 new register of beneficial owners of companies 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.

Want to download to listen to any time offline? Download here.

Jargon
Beneficial Owner

The person who actually benefits from the income or capital associated with owning something, and/or on whose behalf a transaction is being conducted. They are often different from legal or nominee owners, who may just be proxies who get no benefit from the asset, whose identity is used to hide the real beneficial owner.

Secrecy Jurisdiction

A tax haven or secrecy jurisdiction is a place that deliberately provides an escape route for people or entities who live or operate elsewhere. They shield them from whatever taxes, criminal laws, financial regulations, transparency or other constraints they don’t like. Ordinary people whose lives are affected by tax haven laws are not consulted on these laws because they live in other countries: they have no say in how those laws are made, thus undermining their democratic rights.

Tax Haven

A tax haven or secrecy jurisdiction is a place that deliberately provides an escape route for people or entities who live or operate elsewhere. They shield them from whatever taxes, criminal laws, financial regulations, transparency or other constraints they don’t like. Ordinary people whose lives are affected by tax haven laws are not consulted on these laws because they live in other countries: they have no say in how those laws are made, thus undermining their democratic rights.

Offshore

A tax haven or secrecy jurisdiction is a place that deliberately provides an escape route for people or entities who live or operate elsewhere. They shield them from whatever taxes, criminal laws, financial regulations, transparency or other constraints they don’t like. Ordinary people whose lives are affected by tax haven laws are not consulted on these laws because they live in other countries: they have no say in how those laws are made, thus undermining their democratic rights.

5 Rs of Tax

Revenue, to fund public services, infrastructure and administration.
Redistribution, to curb inequalities between individuals and between groups.
Repricing, to limit public “bads” such as tobacco consumption and carbon emissions.
Representation, to build healthier democratic processes, recognising that higher reliance of government. spending on tax revenues is strongly linked to higher quality of governance and political representation.
Reparation, to redress the historical legacies of empire and ecological damage.

More episodes
Mar 28
2025
The Taxcast
#152 The Chinese Phantom
How easy is it to get filthy rich selling arms to anyone who'll pay? There may be sanctions, there may be laws, but even though he's the FBI's most wanted fugitive, a Chinese arms dealer and manufacturer has evaded arrest for two decades. Who could be better to investigate one of the world’s most dangerous men and tell this story than Panama Papers journalists? What does their investigation tell us about sanctions and financial secrecy at a time of rising autocracy and global insecurity?
View full episode info
Feb 27
2025
The Taxcast
#151 Ending US financial secrecy
The rollercoaster story of the battle in the US (the world's biggest global financial secrecy offender) over the implementation of a beneficial ownership register, the attempts to stop it & the (many) lessons learned from the UK's registers.
View full episode info
Jan 31
2025
The Taxcast
#150 Al-Assad and Guernsey
A Syrian kleptocrat and alleged war criminal, and the British Crown Dependency of Guernsey. Plus: on day one of his presidency, Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the OECD's global minimum tax deal. So what now?
View full episode info
Dec 18
2024
The Taxcast
#149 $6.2 million banana
A world where someone pays $6.2 million for a banana duct-taped to a wall is a world that needs wealth taxes. But unsubstantiated spin and myth making dominates the debate. We look at the Tax Justice Network's modest wealth tax proposal which could help governments increase their national budgets by 7 percent a year, a potential global revenue of more than 2 trillion US dollars annually. And we discuss what research really says about so-called 'tax flight' by the very wealthy because of tax reforms.
View full episode info
Nov 29
2024
The Taxcast
#148 Trump: All's Not Lost
What are the implications of Donald Trump's election victory for tax justice and the anti-corruption fight, not just in the US but globally? We see a moment of clarity... Plus two pieces of really good news: 1) the latest vote at the UN as countries vote overwhelmingly to take negotiations on the UN Tax Convention to the next step, leaving the blocker nations in a tiny minority. 2) despite huge lobbying to try to stop them, Australian politicians have shown how politicians really can act in the public interest.
View full episode info
Nov 1
2024
The Taxcast
#147 Three big wins
On the Taxcast this month, three big tax justice wins: first, the draft UN convention - showing exactly why the United Nations is so much better and more democratic a place for the world to truly reform international tax rules. Second, the Financial Action Task force has announced important changes which indicate a shift away from the colonial mindset that established a system that's not working because it fails to hold the really big offender nations to account. And third, the Australian government seems to be holding its nerve against major lobbying pressure and is getting closer to implementing its world leading country by country reporting legislation.
View full episode info