Month: March 2022

The US has said that although these oil imports do not violate sanctions, “support for Russia…is support for an invasion that obviously is having a devastating impact”.

After the US and China, India is the world’s third-largest consumer of oil, over 80% of which is imported.

In 2021, India bought about 12 million barrels of oil from Russia, only 2% of its total imports.

By far the largest supplies last year came from the Middle East, with significant quantities also from the US and Nigeria.

In January and February, India didn’t import any oil from Russia.

But contracts for March and April have already reached six million barrels, according to data compiled by Kpler, a commodities research group.

The Indian government says even if it buys more oil from Russia, it would “still be a drop, literally a drop, in a larger bucket” of its oil imports globally.

Following its invasion of Ukraine, there are now fewer buyers for Russia’s Ural crude oil, and its price has fallen.

“While we don’t know the exact price that India is paying, the Urals discount to Brent crude [the global benchmark] in the last week has widened to about $30 per barrel,” says Matt Smith, an analyst at Kpler.

These two types of crude normally sell at a similar price.

But at one point in March, as the price of Urals continued to drop, the difference between them reached an all-time record, he adds.

So “India and China are likely to purchase at least some of this [Russian] crude at a significant discount,” he says.

India imports more than 80% of its oil

India’s big refining companies are facing a challenge trying to finance these discounted purchases, because of sanctions on Russian banks.

It’s a problem facing trade in both directions.

Financial analysts Bloomberg estimate that Indian exporters to Russia are currently awaiting payments equivalent to about $500m (£381.5m).

One of the options India is looking at is a transaction system based on local currencies, where Indian exporters to Russia get paid in roubles instead of dollars or euros.

India’s oil imports from the US have gone up significantly since February, according to analysts at Refinitiv.

However, market analysts say this may not be sustainable in the future as the US seeks to use its domestic oil production to replace supplies from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

There are also suggestions that trade with Iran could resume under a barter mechanism which Indian oil refiners could use to buy its oil. This arrangement stopped three years ago, when the US reimposed sanctions on Iran.

But this is unlikely to resume without a wider deal reached in international negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme.

The proposal aims to capture more of the wealth created by the soaring stock market of the last few years.

It targets the roughly 20,000 taxpayers in the US worth more than $100m (£76m).

Investor Warren Buffett, Tesla boss Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would be among those affected.

Under the proposal, America’s 0.01% richest would face a minimum 20% tax on income. Crucially, it changes rules on calculating income to include gains from stocks, even if they were not sold by the investor being taxed.

“This approach means that the very wealthiest Americans pay taxes as they go, just like everyone else, and eliminates the inefficient sheltering of income for decades or generations,” the White House said.

The idea is the latest in a long list of efforts to raise taxes on the super-rich and faces long odds in Washington – not to mention opposition among the class it proposes to target.

There are about 20,600 people worth more than $100m in the US, according to estimates by the Boston Consulting Group.

The White House said more than half the $360bn raised from the measure over 10 years would come from the country’s roughly 700 billionaires.

“Eventually they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you,” Tesla boss and world’s richest man Elon Musk wrote on Twitter last year about a similar proposal.

Under Mr Biden’s proposal, Mr Musk – a father of seven who boasts a net worth of more than $280bn – would have to pay $50bn more in taxes over 10 years than under the current system, according to analysis by Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California-Berkeley.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would face an extra $35bn bill, while Warren Buffett would be on the hook for $26bn.

“This is big,” Prof Zucman, who has studied billionaire wealth and helped design a wealth tax proposal for left-wing Senator Elizabeth Warren, wrote on Twitter.

Mr Biden’s budget also calls for raising the income tax rate on households earning over $400,000 from 37% to 39.6% and increasing the tax on companies to 28%, partially reversing cuts made under the Trump administration.

He would also make other reforms to the system for taxing the gains in value from stocks and property, which would apply beyond the richest Americans.

Together the reforms and others in the budget would help reduce the deficit by $1tn over the next decade, according to the White House.

For the 2022 financial year, the annual deficit is projected at more than $1.2tn. Overall debt passed $30tn last month.

Mr Biden has long called for many of the tax changes in this year’s budget to little avail.

In Congress, other proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy have met with little success.

Fellow Democrat Joe Manchin, of West Virginia – one of the key of members of Mr Biden’s party who has blocked his wider agenda – last year said that a similar proposal from Senator Ron Wyden was too complicated and he didn’t “like the connotation that we’re targeting different people”.

Other Democrats have expressed concerns about other similar proposals’ workability and ability to withstand legal challenge.

In a briefing for reporters on Monday, Treasury officials said the goal was to advance the discussions in Washington about how to ensure the rich paid their fair share.

America’s 400 richest families have more wealth than all 10 million of the country’s black families combined, according to a 2020 analysis by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

The memorial at Westminster Abbey for Prince Philip, who died last year aged 99, will celebrate his public service and a “long life lived fully”.

Representatives of his charities, including the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, will be in the congregation.

Buckingham Palace has indicated a last-minute decision will be taken as to whether the Queen will attend.

It would be the first public event, outside of her own residences, attended by the 95-year-old monarch this year.

The Queen has had problems with her mobility and had to pull out of the Commonwealth Service earlier this month.

The thanksgiving service for Prince Philip will hear the Dean of Westminster, David Hoyle, offering prayers for a “man of rare ability and distinction” who “put privilege to work and understood his rank as a spur to service”.

The Metropolitan Police will issue at least 15 fixed-penalty fines initially and could start on Tuesday, Westminster sources suggest.

The investigation of 12 events held across government began in January.

It came after an internal inquiry passed information to the force. The Guardian said fines were “imminent”.

Downing Street and the Met have not commented, but government sources told the BBC officers could be about to begin issuing the fines.

For months, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government were dogged by reports of staff parties in Downing Street when Covid restrictions were in place.

Several Conservative MPs had called for Mr Johnson to resign over the parties, but some have changed their stance in recent weeks since the war in Ukraine started.

Quite rightly, the war in Ukraine has been sucking up much of the government’s and Parliament’s focus in recent weeks.

That has released one form of pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson – and replaced it with another more serious in nature as he, together with allies, try to cope with a grave conflict.

But don’t forget how much trouble Mr Johnson and his team were in, over multiple allegations of breaking the Covid-19 regulations they themselves set.

Even the minimalist version of the official Whitehall report into what went on was scathing.

The police investigation was launched after a separate inquiry was undertaken by senior civil servant Sue Gray.

The initial findings of Ms Gray’s inquiry criticised “failures of leadership and judgement” over the gatherings, between May 2020 and April 2021.

The prime minister told Conservative MPs that an updated version of the Gray report will be published in full, once the police have finished their investigation.

Of the 16 gatherings listed in her initial findings, the police are investigating all but four of them.

A various stages during the pandemic, the government has imposed legally enforceable rules – including restrictions on social gatherings – to stop Covid from spreading and save lives.

examining 12 gatherings on eight dates to see if Covid regulations were broken.

Mr Johnson is known to have attended at least three of the gatherings:

He has said he did not believe he was breaking any rules, but apologised “for the things we simply didn’t get right”.

Last week, Conservative co-chairman Oliver Dowden told LBC that Mr Johnson was “confident” he did not break the law.

The police said a fine – known as a fixed-penalty notice – would be issued to anyone found to have breached Covid regulations.

The Met said it would contact people “believed to have taken part in the events in question to get their accounts”.

The force had sent questionnaires to dozens of staff members, aides and ministers, including Mr Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak.

Officers have already been supplied with more than 300 photographs and 500 pages of material, from the inquiry led by Ms Gray.

The force said the questionnaires have “formal legal status” and needed to be responded to “truthfully” within seven days.

Mr Johnson has returned his questionnaire, but Downing Street has since said his answers would not be made public. He has, however, said he would tell the public if he received a fine.

For those who do receive a fine, they will face no further action if the penalty is paid, police said.

The Met said if they decide to dispute the fine, officers will consider whether to pursue the matter in court.

The force has said it will reveal the number of fixed penalty notices it issues, and the nature of the rule breaches.

In a statement on 21 March, the Met said it had “begun to interview people, as witnesses”, but had not yet issued any fixed-penalty notices.

“To date, over 100 questionnaires have been sent out asking the recipients about their participation in alleged gatherings,” the force said.

Just weeks ago, Ms Gray’s report and the police investigation had threatened to derail Mr Johnson’s government.

A raft of media reports about the parties when Covid rules applied angered many and provoked some Tory MPs to seek the removal of Mr Johnson as prime minister.

To trigger a leadership challenge in the Conservative Party, at least 15% of sitting MPs have to write a letter saying they no longer have any confidence in the prime minister.

But in recent weeks, Conservatives have changed their tone in response to the war in Ukraine.

Earlier this month, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Douglas Ross, withdrew his letter of no confidence in the prime minister, citing the war in Ukraine.

Mr Ross said the row over the lockdown parties now seemed trivial in comparison to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and now would be “totally the wrong time” to change leader.