Financial Transparency Coalition

Earlier this year, our colleagues at the Tax Justice Network released an app to give you access to the latest while you are on the go. Although the first release was just for Android phones, they've just announced that a version for the iPhone is now available for download. You can find it at the iTunes store here. You can also check out the licensing agreement, instructions, creative commons licensing, and more here.

In his first official act after winning the biggest democratic election in world history, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the formation of a Special Investigative Team (SIT) to probe illicit financial flows, or ‘black money’ as they are commonly referred to in India.

Last week Ukrainians cast their ballots for a new president. It was the first election for the position since the nation ousted its allegedly-corrupt former President, Viktor Yanukovych. Before he fled to Russia, Yanukovych lived on 340 acres of land on the banks of the river Dnieper in Ukraine. His former home, a five story mansion named Mezhyhiriya, is decorated with marble, crystal, and precious woods. It is difficult to overstate the luxury of this palatial building. Its cedar doors are worth $64,000, the wall...

The Taxcast looks at privatisation and tax: what happens when public assets or services get into private hands? Also: Google’s challenged on its tax affairs by its own shareholders; will Congress block the US administration’s decision to agree to the G20′s global transparency standard? And whatever happened to the UK government’s ‘leadership’ on public registers of the real owners of companies now it turns out it’ll ‘encourage’ but not ‘force’ its overseas territories & Crown dependencies to sign up to the initiative?