Aug302017

Turnbull Government secures better power deal for Australian families

Australia

Up to two million Australian households will be contacted by their electricity providers and offered a better, cheaper deal on their power bills.

The agreement was reached during a second meeting between the Government and the nation’s biggest energy retailers. It is the latest step in the Turnbull Government’s drive to cut energy prices for households and businesses.

Retailers confirmed their commitments from the first meeting on 9 August to ensure that an estimated 1 million families on expired discount offers are contacted and directed to the best electricity plan for them.

At today’s meeting, retailers agreed to go further; contacting another 1 million customers on ‘standing offers’ – usually the most expensive rates.

This means up to two million Australian households will be given the opportunity to move to cheaper rates, reducing their annual power bill.

We know that 50 per cent of households have not moved retailers or contracts in the past five years, even though savings can be as high as $1500.

At the urging of the Turnbull Government, companies will move towards marketing their offers in dollar terms, speed up switching between different providers, provide more flexible billing (such as monthly where smart meters are in place) and work with government and regulators to communicate more clearly and effectively with customers.

The Government also secured a commitment from the retailers to make available to customers their consumption and payment information, working with the Australian Energy Regulator on a QR code, or equivalent, on their bill which they can scan using a smartphone and instantly compare offers from other retailers.

The Government acknowledges the support retailers give through their hardship programs and both agree to identify and share best practice elements and examine potential improvements.

Electricity is an essential service. Australian households and small businesses rightly expect they have access to the best possible deal and these commitments from retailers represents significant progress towards this end. 

These measures are part of the Government’s efforts to improve competition and lower energy prices, including commissioning the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to review the electricity market.

Aug302017

Atal Pension Yojana surges ahead with 62 lacs enrolment

India

A total of 3.07 lac APY accounts have been sourced under One Nation One Pension. The stellar performance of the banks under the campaign includes some of the largest banks in the country namely, State Bank of India sourcing a stupendous 51,000 APY accounts and other prominent banks like Canara Bank which has sourced 32,306 APY accounts, Andhra Bank at 29,057 APY accounts, in other private banks category, Karnataka Bank at 2641 APY accounts,

Aug302017

Mr Draghi wants more free trade so why not accept the UK offer?

John Redwood MP

Mr Draghi’s recent speech about growth contained some important statements. He expressed concerns about the big increase in elderly people and the strain that will place on state budgets. He said that state debt and meeting state liabilities would become increasingly fraught if the productivity and output growth rates did not speed up. Whilst what he said seemed to mainly describe the economies of Spain, Italy, Greece and some other Eurozone countries, he sought to argue that all the richer OECD economies face these same issues. Indeed, he was a pessimist, expecting the OECD growth rate of 2% per annum pre crisis to slump now to 1% a year only.

So what was his remedy? Surprisingly his main recommendation was to intensify global competition in order to spread innovation and higher productivity more widely more quickly. He pointed to using international bodies to offer a common regulatory framework to make more international trade feasible in his terms. He gave as examples the Basel Committees and the FSB as global bodies for regulating the finance sector.

He had a notable omission from his speech. If he is keen to keep trade flowing with minimal tariffs and other barriers he should be urging his fellow officials in the EU and Eurozone to welcome the UK’s offer of tariff free trade with no new barriers. I wonder what held him back from making this obvious statement? Did he forget the clause in the EU Treaties which requires the EU to develop friendly and positive relations with neighbouring states, including free trade?

Aug302017

Remarks at Energy Retailers Meeting

Australia

PRIME MINISTER:

Thank you all for joining us again today.

As you know, too many Australians are paying more for their electricity than they need to. It’s our commitment to ensure, working with you, that no Australians pay any more for energy than they need to. But we need your help.

We’re very focused on putting downward pressure on energy prices. It’s one of the reasons we’re working on long-term projects like Snowy Hydro 2.0 but that’s years away, six years away Paul promised, and we’ll hold him to that by the way.

But the reality is we need action now.

I want to thank you for the commitments you made at our last meeting. We reached a number of agreements whereby you would contact your customers who had discounted plans that had expired and advise them that they were paying more than they needed to. That’s very important.

You’ve given support for a rule change under the electricity law to make this mandatory in the future.

You’re taking steps, ongoing, to ensure customers are aware of better offers and giving clearer, more user-friendly information.

So we’re looking forward to hearing your progress on all of that but we think there is a lot more than we can do.

It troubles us greatly, it’s very concerning that in addition to those Australians that are on expired plans, there are up to a million households, possibly a lot more, still on standing offers which are often, as you know, the most expensive proposition for a customer.

So we want you to write to them as well and explain to them that they could potentially save hundreds of dollars by switching to a cheaper rate.

As you know, the gap between the best and worst offers can range from $900 to $1,500 depending on the household and even within market offers, the gap between the best and the median offers is up to $400.

So these are very large sums of money for Australian families.

Ensuring that no Australian is paying more for electricity than they need to – in other words, that your customers are getting the best deal you can offer them – is absolutely critical.

We want to address that and I know you’re committed to doing so.

We need to do it urgently and directly.

We’ve got a lot of good policies underway, we’ve got a lot of good projects underway but they’ll take time to build.

We need action right now in the here and now and with your support, we’ll be able to ensure, working together, that Australians are not paying any more for electricity than they need to and that millions of Australian households will be able to save hundreds, in some cases thousands of dollars.

So thanks very much for being here.

We look forward to having a very good and constructive discussion that will ensure we’re all working together to make sure Australians get the best deal on energy that they can.

Thank you.

[ENDS]

Aug302017

Approving a draft Convention between the governments of Russia and Japan on avoiding double taxation of incomes and preventing tax evasion

Russia

The signing of the Convention will allow tax payers of each contracting party to avoid paying twice on the same type of income, which will facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and Japan and allow corresponding government bodies to exchange information in order to reveal tax offences.

Reference

The document has been submitted by the Ministry of Finance.

The Russian side signed a directive endorsing the draft Convention between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of Japan on Avoiding Double Taxation of Incomes and Preventing Tax Evasion and the Protocol Thereto (hereinafter referred to as the Convention).

After signing, the Convention will replace the current Convention of 18 January 1986 between the Government of the USSR and the Government of Japan for the Avoidance of Double Taxation with Respect to Taxes on Income. The need to revise the relations envisaged in the Convention between the Government of the USSR and the Government of Japan is determined by changes in the conditions of economic activities in Russia and amendments in the tax legislation of both Russia and Japan, as well as the development of bilateral economic ties and international trends in taxation, which concern, in particular, information exchange and countering abuses.

The Convention covers taxes levied from the total sum of income or separate elements of income of persons that are residents of one or both Contracting States.

The Convention covers taxes from business activities, including profits from property, sea and air shipments, dividends, income from copyrights and licenses, and personal income.

The Convention guarantees that tax discrimination will not be permitted and regulates the procedure of reviewing inquiries and statements of taxpayers and settling disputes in the event the actions of one or both Contracting States are leading or will lead to the taxation in breach of the provisions of the concluded Convention.

The Convention also regulates information exchange between the competent bodies of the Contracting States.

In accordance with the federal law On the International Treaties of the Russian Federation, after signing the Convention will be subject to ratification as it contains rules that differ from those envisaged by the Russian legislation.

The signing of the Convention will allow tax payers of each Contracting State to avoid paying twice on the same type of income, which will facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and Japan, create additional conditions for attracting investment and allow corresponding government bodies to exchange information in order to reveal tax offences.