These are my links for February 22nd through February 23rd:

• FT.com / Companies / Banks - Swiss warn on US move over UBS clients - "Switzerland’s finance minister has accused US authorities of “shock” tactics to compel holders of undeclared UBS accounts to come forward, but warned that court action to discover the names of thousands of clients would not succeed."

  Rubbish - they will - or Switzerland will be forced out of business, lock, stock and barrel

• US Senate delays tax haven hearing over UBS-paper - Delayed, but not forgotten - let me assure the Swiss
• SEC targets Stanford's London auditor for info - Accountancy Age - The arguments for audit reform and compulsory appointments grows by the day
• Debtonation » Blog Archive » Finance as servant - Sadly, while Gordon Brown echoes the language of Lincoln and the 1944 Labour Party, he once again refuses to countenance any action that might oblige finance to become the servant to the economy.

  “We do not envisage, as some have advocated, a rigid divide in future between “narrow banking” - retail and corporate despoit taking - and investment banking and trading conducted at an international level.”

  So, no change there then. The masters will continue to hold the UK and the global economy to ransom.

• Marina Hyde: Thanks for the philanthropy, billionaires. Now pay your tax | - Charity may begin at home, but philanthropy begins with paying tax. Not only was Stanford a "philanthropist" who owed $212m in unpaid taxes, but a man whose business was dedicated to enabling countless others to evade tax. This week, the tax campaigner Richard Murphy considered the Stanford-assisted hardship Antigua will now face, and declared: "Now is the time for developed countries to show to secrecy jurisdictions that there is life after this pernicious activity: that aid will be given to help them redevelop their economies and that there are alternatives."

  Even a man of Stanford's preposterous bluster would struggle to explain how enabling tax dodging has anything to do with giving a toss about other people. He and his ilk are fauxlanthropists. If governments are brave enough, the real philanthropy should begin now.

• Green Municipal Bonds - Economic Crisis Solved : The Inspired Economist - "Green Municipal Bonds offer the opportunity to rescue the economy and the environment. Local governments are needlessly watching their economies disintegrate, waiting and begging for handouts from Washington D.C., while all along the power to save their economies and help the environment lies in their hands - Green Municipal Bonds."

  Which is what I've been saying since 2003....

• Brown changes tack on on tax havens - 19 Feb 2009 - AccountingWEB wakes up to the issue

  In itself that is significant

• Deloitte slapped with record fine | AccMan - When do we agree the model is bust?