Melissa Jones, 23 July 2012

From HSBC filling its coffers with drug and terrorist money to news that the rich are hiding an astounding £21 trillion in offshore tax havens -  just when you thought you'd heard it all, along comes yet another banking or tax scandal.  

"You really couldn't make up some of this stuff," says Taxcast presenter Naomi Fowler discussing with accountant Richard Murphy and fraud writer Jeffrey Robinson the extraordinary reality that despite the massive fraud there probably won't be any prosecutions at HSBC.

"These banks feel they can get away with anything because the regulators are asleep," explains Robinson. This 'culture of entitlement' will only stop, he says, once "you take some of these bankers and you put them in a 6x4 cell, and that will get the attention of the other bankers and they will suddenly say, oh no, I better clean up my act".

Mounting public fury and the threat of protests outside their offices helped five out of 13 big name Olympic corporate partners including Adidas and Coca Cola finally see the light last week and give up special 'zero tax' breaks.

This summer, the Olympic site in East London has become the world's latest tax haven, allowing multinationals to make a profit at the British taxpayer's expense to the tune of £600-700 million. Hear more on the great Olympic tax swindle on the Tax Justice Network's July Taxcast. http://traffic.libsyn.com/taxcast/July_Taxcast.mp3.