Former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer handed over on Monday the offshore bank account details of 2,000 "high net worth individuals" and corporations to WikiLeaks. He says that the information details massive potential tax evasion. In giving up the information, Elmer has become perhaps the boldest whistle blower in Swiss banking history.

Elmer is set to go on trial in his native Switzerland this week. He has been exiled in Mauritius while awaiting trial. The former COO in the Cayman Islands and employee of the powerful Julius Baer bank is accused of stealing the information.

The banking information was handed over to WikiLeaks on several CDs at the Frontline Club in London.

Switzerland is famously secretive about its banking and financial services, and is considered an expert in the concealment of wealth from all over the world for tax evasion and other extra-legal purposes.

Elmer says that he is releasing the information "in order to educate society." He says that those involved include "high net worth individuals, multinational conglomerates and financial institutions- hedge funds." Clients include "business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates- from both sides of the Atlantic."

The very richest of the rich in America got far, far richer in 2009, a report by David Cay Johnston, an expert at this stuff, shows. The report appears on the Tax.com web site.

Indeed, those making $50 million or more per year went from an average income of $91.2 million to an astounding $518.8 million a year. That's an income increase of some $10 million a week! The figures represent increases from 2008 to 2009.

Vote Republican and help these "needy" people.

Here is a link to facts you can't seem to find anywhere else in the news media.

Many people might think that they are prepared for any situation. They have bottled water stocked up, they have an evacuation plan, and they have a first aid kit. If their house catches on fire, the fire extinguisher is at the ready. They can handle anything.

However, they may not have considered that emergencies are often financial, as well. Hopefully, they have a healthy savings account to draw from when needed, but many people don't have that luxury. They may be living paycheck to paycheck, or other expenses may have reduced their savings to practically nothing.

They may even think they can do without money for a few days until their paycheck comes in. Nothing is so important that it can't wait a day or so. However, the worst things always seem to happen at the worst time. What would they do if someone in their family became critically ill or were injured? What if their vehicle broke down, and they couldn't even make it to work to earn that paycheck without an expensive part?

In cases like that, it's good to know that emergency cash loans are always there to fall back on when there's no other answer. Most of the time, they won't even have to go anywhere or wait for normal business hours to start the process. They can use a convenient online application process to find out if they qualify for a loan.

Vehicles are essential to modern life, whether it is a car for day to day essential travel and running errands for the family or a truck for business purposes, most people need access to a reliable form of transport that will serve their personal needs. And because we spend so much time in our automobiles these days, purchasing a vehicle that makes you feel happy and comfortable is a top priority for many people.

But what happens when you spot the perfect vehicle, but simply don’t have enough funds to secure it? There are a range of financial solutions out there aimed at helping motorists secure the vehicle of their dreams so consumers need to carry out some research to find which is the right one for them.

For example, if a buyer finds the perfect car or truck but is a little bit short on the necessary cash to pay for it outright they may wish to look into some form of cash advance, with options including loans from friends and family, a short term credit line from the bank or even a payday loan where the money is borrowed against next month’s paycheck.

Those who have invested in Nando's, the founder of the Nando's chain of spicy chicken restaurants, may be in for some good personal finance news thanks to a recent merger. The Nando's chain has recently acquired the Clapham House Group, famous for their own burger chain.

This means that Nando's now owns and operates nearly 300 restaurants across the United Kingdom. Over 200 of these are the Nando's chicken outlets, while about sixty are the previously Clapham run Gourmet Burger fast food locations. The acquisition of Clapham also means the induction of a Greek food chain, several overseas restaurants and more. This brings their total number of employees to over 8,000.

This merger is no surprise to those that have tracked the interactions of Nando's and other groups. Nando's was already a strong investor in CHG, owning a full quarter of the shares in the company. The lunge forward is not an unexpected merger; it is simply Nando's move toward owning the entire company rather than a large chunk of it.

There are no dissenting voices screaming about the merger. In fact, the entire deal has the full backing of the Clapham board of directors. That includes David Page, a fast food giant with a large stake in CHG, who was once the owner of Pizza Express.

Key Bank, who in the past has offered free iPods for opening a checking account, is now offering a free Sony Bloggie for opening an account. Here are the details on the offer.

* Open a checking accounts by October 8, 2010, and
* Make one KeyBank Rewards debit card transaction, plus
* A combination of two direct deposits and/or automated payments each of $100 or more by December 10, 2010*

Whether you need to pay for rent, medical bills, or car repairs, an emergency cash loan can provide money for almost any purpose. In most instances, you can obtain cash within 24 hours, as long as you submit the loan application during the morning or early afternoon. Emergency cash lenders usually don't perform a credit check, and you can usually obtain an emergency loan if you don't have good credit. Additionally, you can borrow up to $1000 regardless of your credit situation.

The following are some considerations when obtaining an emergency loan:

To qualify, you need to be a U.S. citizen, at least 18 years old, and have full-time employment. You also need a checking account and two forms of ID. You'll need to provide a postdated check before money can be wired to your account. The check is used for the principal and interest on the loan.

Although an emergency loan may seem attractive (especially when you don't have the best credit), you still need to be careful when obtaining one. A small $300 day loan can cost as much as $75 of interest in just one month.

The downturn in the economy may have created a bad credit score situation for you. You may have been late with payments, or even defaulted. You are not alone. There are thousands of Americans out there who have had this problem. Poor credit scores mean no further loans for them until they get their credit ratings back on track.

One of the best ways to do this is to try to take out a loan from a bank, if necessary against sound collateral. The repayment of the loan, in time and in good order, will be enough to raise your credit ratings.

In fact, many people follow this trick. If your scores are down, you take out a small loan, even when you have money enough not to need that loan. The fact that you have money is reassuring, because then you know you can make the repayments in time. But you still take the loan, because credit scores increase when you have credit in your name that you are diligently repaying.

There is a correlation between apartment vacancy rates and foreclosure. When the latter goes up, the former goes down. Lately, there was a study that showed that apartment vacancy rates reached a 22 year high last year. Especially in larger cities that had lost white collar jobs, apartments were being vacated in huge numbers, and people were leaving for rural areas, or staying with mom and dad.

But then a strange thing happened. Foreclosure rates began to rise, and suddenly, apartment vacancy rates started falling. In smaller cities like Riverside, California, or Chandler, Arizona, where the foreclosure rates were high because people didn’t have money to pay on their mortgages, apartments started getting tenants again. Ask any knowledgeable consultant at the Chandler property management companies, and they will tell you they are getting tenants again.

If you are good at computers, you can file your taxes online these days. But of course you knew that, who doesn’t. But maybe you didn’t know exactly how that is done. You may have been keeping some kind of an accounting document in your PC, but how would you integrate that with the tax software?

Actually, it is very easy. The software is very user friendly, and has an interface that seems almost intelligent; in the way it anticipates your questions and brings out the answer, correctly, every time. It also has features that will let you upload or add your accounting file, which you can then use to add data to the software. As you go on adding data, it will give out page after page of easy to understand input requests. As soon as you complete all that, your papers are ready to be filed.

If you know how to use accounting software like Quicken or Intuit, you will find tax software like TurboTax very useful. TurboTax easily integrates with these accounting software, so the data handling part becomes much easier. All you have to do is set a few options, perhaps answer a few questions, and the software will go to work for you, correlating with the accounting software of your choice and getting your tax documents ready.