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There's understandable caution about the prospects of successful tax legislation after Republican lawmakers failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. 

The tax-reform proposal that the White House unveiled this week is already fraught with a number of issues that could delay its timeline. They include a lack of details on how revenue shortfalls would be made up and a looming jostle among lobbyists for the most favorable piece of legislation. 

Even after some renewed enthusiasm in the last two weeks for lower corporate taxes, UBS Asset Management says Wall Street is placing too little odds on the prospects of tax reform.

"There's no way that the markets would be trading this way if they were pricing in a greater than 50% probability of successful tax legislation," said Evan Brown, the director of asset allocation at UBS Asset Management, which oversees more than $732 billion in holdings. "It's starting to get priced in, but there's plenty of room," he told Business Insider on Thursday. 

President Donald Trump proposed a "red line" corporate tax rate of 20%, which is not as ambitious as his initial target of 15%, but would lower the statutory rate from 35%.

"Whereas the market took the failure of healthcare legislation as a sign that the administration could not get anything done, we actually think that the failure of healthcare legislation increases the probability that there's a step on tax legislation because they need a win," Brown said. "Congressional Republicans need to be able to go in front of their constituents in November of next year and say 'we delivered.'"

Most-taxed companies

One of the best ways to track the odds investors are placing on corporate tax cuts is by looking at companies that would likely benefit the most, or those that are paying the highest taxes now.

Tech companies dominate the top-20 list compiled by Goldman Sachs. 

"Immediately after the election, it's those high effective tax stocks that surged relative to the S&P 500, Brown said. "That's been completely unwound. That basket of stocks relative to the S&P is now below where it was below the election, which is just remarkable."

As this chart shows, the basket has leapt in the past two weeks as the latest Obamacare repeal effort failed and Wall Street saw Congress moving on to taxes. 

"Should tax reform/cuts be adopted, it would likely include a one-time tax on untaxed foreign profits," said Arjun Menon, a Goldman strategist, in a recent note. Many large companies that earn revenues outside the US avoid paying 35% by stashing or reinvesting their foreign profits abroad.

"The proposal has remained popular because it will likely boost tax revenues and help address the issue of revenue-neutrality in any potential tax reform package," Menon said

Some of the after-tax foreign profits could be spent on stock buybacks to boost stock prices for shareholders' benefit. But Menon cautioned that unlike the 2004 tax holiday, companies may be more willing to favor uses of their cash other than buybacks because stocks are already very expensive.

SEE ALSO: 'All the goodies but none of the pain' — here's what Wall Street is saying about Trump's tax plan

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Patrick Harker of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has said bitcoin has yet to be tested by a real catastrophe.

Combating illicit trade and modern slavery is best done by pressuring companies directly, even when their promises are hollow, according to a leading human rights lawyer and activist.

The alternative of introducing legislation as a first step is often inneffective, says Niccolò Figà-Talamanca, secretary general of NGO No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ), since companies lobby against lawmakers' efforts, find loopholes or simply deny they are in breach of new rules. Getting companies to agree to better self-regulation is often easier and more effective.

"You can get companies to set a much higher standard if they believe the compliance mechanism is essentially themselves," says Figà-Talamanca. "Then you can creep legislative efforts in, and it's much harder for them to lobby against stuff that they've already agreed to."

Starting with legislation, he says, "usually addresses last year's problem," since implementing new laws is often very slow. Meanwhile, parliamentarians "can say they've done something to clean up the supply chain," he says, but the result is "a new standard, which is a c**p standard."

Earlier this year, the UK's National Crime Agency said the slave trade in the UK is "far more prevalent" than expected, with trafficked labour prevalent in domestic servitude and sex work as well as in the agricultural and construction industries. Meanwhile, illicit trade networks, which deal in weapons, drugs, human beings and more, generate billions every year, according to the OECD, and the drug market in the EU alone is worth an estimated €24 billion per year, according to EUROPOL. 

The textiles industry is a good example of how successful self-criticism can be, particularly for client-facing businesses, and when brands' names are part of the value of the product. Many clothing retailers faced a consumer backlash in recent years against allegations that brands like Primark were using "sweatshops" and workers in slave-like conditions to produce products.

As a result, says Figà-Talamanca, "H&M have to be responsible for their whole supply chain," and cannot claim not to be responsible for the way their suppliers treat workers.

Tech giant Apple has also publicly discussed finding instances of human rights abuses and conflict minerals in its supply chain. This is "fantastic," says Figà-Talamanca, because "it really raises the bar for everybody else."

However, there is much more to be done. Speaking at the Financial Times' Combating Illicit Trade conference on Thursday, Ruth Freedom Pojman, an expert in human trafficking at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said there were an estimated 116 million workers and forced labourers globally hidden in supply chains.

Affecting change in non-client facing sectors, such as the extractive industry, is particularly challenging, says Figà-Talamanca, since customers are not buying a brand, and "gold is gold."

Sometimes, he says, it feels like companies will only take action "if they hear the jingle of handcuffs in the boardroom." But putting pressure on industry leaders, like Apple, is crucial, he says, since many are now looking to build reputations for being sustainable and good global citizens.

"Try and set the standard as high as possible even when you know that it's a lie, because then you try and hold them to that lie," he says. "This is the game."

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• New podcast Totally Football Show attracts five million downloads in two months;
• Founder Iain Macintosh wants to use success to launch more shows, beyond just sport;
• Macintosh predicts podcast advertising boom: "I think there's going to be a swing in that direction."

LONDON — Ever since the breakout success of true crime show Serial, podcasts have been one of the few areas of media that are growing.

The market is forecast to be worth $300 million (£223.5 million) this year and is growing fast. An estimated 4.7 million people in the UK are listening.

The only thing anyone in UK football podcasting — perhaps a bigger niche than you might think — can talk about right now are defections from Guardian Football Weekly.

The Guardian launched Football Weekly in 2006 as a chat-show style audio round-up of World Cup action. Since then it has grown into one of the UK's most popular podcasts, regularly charting in the top 10 and averaging 150,000 downloads per episode. Central to its popularity was its gregarious, pun-loving host James Richardson — probably best known as the host of Channel 4's well-loved Football Italia.

But Richardson, podcast producer Ben Green, and regular contributor Iain Macintosh surprised fans in late July by announcing they were leaving the Guardian to set up their own, rival venture. The news was described by more than a few Twitter users as the biggest shock of the transfer window.

"When you see the response to the news when it came out — we pretty much broke Twitter for a day," Iain Macintosh told Business Insider in a phone interview this week.

Macintosh, known for his buoyantly delivered "Hellos" at the start of podcasts, was the mutiny leader. A football journalist by trade, Macintosh said he could see podcasts were the future after guesting on the Guardian and other shows and listening to podcasts himself.

"We're 10 years down the line really for podcasts," he says. "It's less of a niche thing and more into the mainstream. I always look at my parents — when my parents are talking about something, that's when I know the cut-through moment is there. It's there now."

But why break from the Guardian? It would easy to see it a move motivated by avarice — all three of the breakaway podcasters have an ownership stake in the new business, Muddy Knees Media, and will share any spoils. Suspicions aren't helped by the fact that the Totally Football Show, the trio's first production, sounds remarkably similar to the Guardian's output.

But Macintosh says it's not about the money but about creative control.

"There's so much freedom in podcasts — it doesn't have to be just the standard panel, the standard current affairs, everyone getting their takes on everything," he says. "The success of some of the other stuff that you see in the industry just shows you what is possible. I mean My Dad Wrote a Porno [a comedy podcast about a middle aged man writing a pornographic novel] — that would never get commissioned by anyone. But in the podcast world, there's a chance."

Going independent means Macintosh, Richardson, and Green can try new things and not worry if their experiments don't all come off.

"There's an awful lot of reason and every person involved has got their own motivations but obviously there's a desire for independence, for control," Macintosh says.

'When the last football season ended this wasn't even a thing'

Just weeks after announcing the split, the first edition of the Totally Football Show was released, timed to launch at the start of the new football season in early August. A second show focusing on the lower leagues of English football was launched two weeks ago.

Both sound slick and well rehearsed, but their launch has been much more seat-of-the-pants than it seems.

"When the last football season ended [in May] this wasn't even a thing," Macintosh says. "It was very, very late. Very late indeed.

"Ordinarily, you'd want about three or four months to set up a company like this. Just for the Totally Football Show. I think we had about two and a half, three weeks? It all just happened."

He adds: "It had always been in my head that podcasts were the way forward but the way it happened — I basically spent a week with a phone sellotaped to my ear."

Despite the hurried start, the trio still managed to pull together a consortium of private investors to fund the project. Macintosh says Muddy Knees Media is well-funded enough not to be looking at outside investment for now.

5.7 million downloads and counting

Incredibly, just eight weeks after its first show, the Totally Football Show already has 5.7 million downloads per month — up from two million at the start of September.

"I wasn't entirely surprised when the numbers came in as high as they did," Macintosh says. "It was sort of what we'd hoped for. It's always been a thing of mine — get good people doing stuff that they're good at. And we've got the best presenter in James Richardson, the best producer in Ben Green. It's all about harnessing that power now and taking that power and spreading it out to the other shows."

We kind of have a rocket boost on everything we do

Macintosh's ambition is to take Muddy Knees Media beyond football — beyond sport even — and turn it into a podcast production juggernaut.

"We're in talks now for a number of very different directions, as I say non-sport," he says. "There are three or four that are at the concept stage."

Macintosh hopes to have three football podcasts in production by the end of this year and launch another three titles in the first half of next year. Ben Green, better known to listeners as Producer Ben, is a keen wrestling fan and Macintosh has talked elsewhere about the possibility of launching a WWE podcast.

"We've got the number now," he says. "The Football League Show, we've been able to advertise that for free straight to our own audience [through the Totally Football Show]. You'd kill for that audience if you were setting up a football league show now.

"We kind of have a rocket boost on everything we do and it's all about joining it all up — everything we do helping to support everything else. And this is before we even get to live shows and other commercial avenues that we can take."

'The guys at Football Ramble are doing brilliant stuff'

Ambition has been fuelled by the response of advertisers, which Macintosh says has been "really encouraging." Muddy Knees Media has already secured deals with subscription shaving startup Cornerstone and fantasy football game Fan League and is "deep in talks for more advertising."

"One of the things that really made a difference is a couple of days before we launched there was a story in the Sunday Times about Proctor & Gamble," Macintosh recalls. "They had slashed online spending because they just didn't know where it was going. I saw that and thought, well, if your primary concern is you don't know who's seeing these podcasts then, god, podcasts are great.

"There's no better medium for seeing who your audience is. The data that we get is so detailed. I think there's going to be a swing in that direction."

He isn't alone in thinking this. The Totally Football Show is not the only new football show to launch this summer — The Telegraph and The Independent have both launched ones, while popular title The Football Ramble has launched a new spin-off title about European football, On The Continent. Clearly, many people see a bright future for sports podcasts.

"Competition is good," Macintosh says. "It keeps everyone on their toes. The guys at Football Ramble are doing brilliant stuff. They're a great example of what can be done in this industry. They've got such great chemistry and it's really working out well for them."

'We've got nothing but love for the guys at the Guardian'

What about those left behind at the Guardian? New host Max Rushden and his guests sounded almost shell shocked in the first new episode of this season.

"We've got nothing but love for the guys at the Guardian," Macintosh said magnanimously. "I think they're in a very good place."

Not all listeners agree. New host Rushden has drawn ire from some, who have taken to Twitter and the Guardian comments section to complain.

Macintosh says: "Max and Barry [Glendenning, a Guardian journalist and Football Weekly regular] are a terrific double act. Initially, the listeners will be a bit upset but, once they listen to it for a bit, they'll realise how good Max is, how good Barry is."

Ah, Barry — Glendenning is perhaps the one element of the Guardian's secret sauce that Muddy Knees Media have failed to march away with. The sardonic Irishman is a fan favourite, with many wondering why he didn't choose to move across.

Did he try and tempt Glendenning over? 

There's a pause.

"We love Barry. All things are open in the future but Barry has a very good job at the Guardian outside of podcasting. He's a very good writer."

For now, Macintosh has enough on his plate beside chasing new talent.

"The company has to evolve otherwise it's just me running from studio to studio and I don't think anyone wants that," he says. "I think as we progress through these chaotic first three or four months, we'll assess the situation as we go. Nothing is off the table, is the way I always work."

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A Wells Fargo bank teller accused of stealing $185,000 from a homeless customer has agreed to a plea deal, according to court documents cited by The Washington Post.

The former employee, 29-year-old Phelon Davis, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of interstate transfer of stolen property this week after a 2014 encounter with a homeless customer who tried to deposit $185,000 in cash at a Wells Fargo branch in Washington, DC, the court documents said.

The customer, who was not named but was described as a homeless street vendor, had existing accounts at the bank, but he lacked the identification documents he needed to deposit the $185,000 worth of cash he had been carrying in a garbage bag. The Post said. The man was turned away.

The homeless man "had a surprisingly large balance with the bank," The Post reported, citing a document related to the case. Davis was accused of forging the customer's signature to fraudulently open a Wells Fargo account in the customer's name — including an online login, an ATM card, and personal identification number, all of which Davis controlled. He funded the account with $3,000 of the homeless customer's money.

The customer had no access to email or the internet, according to The Post, and thus had no knowledge of the fraudulent activity, the newspaper said.

Court documents showed that, over the course of two years, Davis transferred $177,400 of that customer's money between accounts, and withdrew $185,440, taking $5,000 across state lines, the court documents said. Davis used some of the stolen cash as a down payment on his home, took several vacations, and paid some debts.

Davis has been ordered to pay back the stolen money and could face up to 30 months in prison.

It appears Davis fraudulently opened the accounts during the same period in which Wells Fargo employees were accused of fraudulently opening millions of accounts in customers' names between at least 2011 and 2015. It was unclear whether Davis' activity was related to that scandal, which exploded in 2016 and eventually drove then-CEO John Stumpf out of the company. Wells Fargo in July agreed to shell out $142 million to settle the matter.

SEE ALSO: BUFFETT: Wells Fargo made 3 huge mistakes during the fake accounts scandal but one 'dwarfs all the others'

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The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday charged a man and two companies for operating fraudulent initial coin offerings. 

According to a statement released Friday, the financial watchdog charged Maksim Zaslavskiy and his companies, REcoin Group Foundation and DRC World, with defrauding investors and selling unregistered securities.

"According to the SEC's complaint, investors in REcoin Group Foundation and DRC World (also known as Diamond Reserve Club) have been told they can expect sizeable returns from the companies' operations when neither has any real operations," the agency wrote. 

ICOs allow companies to raise money by issuing their own cryptocurrencies. In some cases companies have raised millions of dollars in a matter of seconds. They've come under scrutiny by regulators because companies have often run an ICO without disclosing substantive information to investors. 

The SEC said Zaslavskiy misled REcoin investors, saying it had a "team of lawyers, professionals, brokers, and accountants" who would handle all investments when no such team existed. 

Similarly, DRC World was a shell, according to the SEC. The company falsely told investors, whom they solicited money from, that they had a inventory of diamonds when they did not. 

The SEC froze the personal assets of Zaslavskiy and his companies after getting an emergency court order, according to the agency.

In July, the US Securities and Exchange Commission announced certain ICO would be subject to regulatory scrutiny. Other countries, such as China and South Korea, have deemed initial coin offerings illegal, because of concerns of fraud.

The market for ICOs has exploded this year with over $2 billion raised, according to data from Autonomous NEXT. 

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