Aurelia Butler

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren this week called on the Treasury Department to more swiftly address racial discrimination in the U.S. tax and banking systems by advancing reforms proposed by an advisory board set up in December 2022.In a letter dated May 9, Warren told Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen she was concerned that many recommendations made by the Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity (TACRE) had not been implemented, including reforms to the IRS audit process.Yellen named 24 experts to the committee to analyze U.S. economic factors that resulted in unfavorable conditions for Black, Latino and Native Americans. They have made over 40 recommendations to date, but experts say change has been slow.Warren said the recommendations would improve economic conditions for Black and Brown communities that face barriers to building equity and assuring financial security for their families, and urged Yellen to implement them swiftly.”I am concerned that the recommendations made by members of the TACRE remain in limbo at Treasury,” Warren wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.One committee member, Dorothy Brown, a tax lawyer and law professor, told Marketplace in January she worried that Treasury was not embracing the recommendations and saw the committee as a “check-the-box” exercise.Warren asked Treasury to brief her staff by May 23 on the timeline for implementing the remaining proposals, including reforms to the Internal Revenue Service’s auditing progress, and creation of outreach tools to ensure low-income tax credits and green energy credits reached under-served communities.The Democratic senator’s letter comes as President Joe Biden works to shore up support in communities of color ahead of the November presidential election, in which he is seeking a second term. A number of Republican senators have challenged creation of the committee, and its work has been closely scrutinized.Warren welcomed what she called a “much-needed” Treasury rulemaking released in late March that would adopt one recommendation – that the IRS share tax data with Census to better track racial disparities in tax enforcement.The changes marked a positive first step, she said, but more work was needed on other proposals, including inclusion of analyses that looked at how Biden’s tax proposals would affect households with different race and income levels, and whether they would benefit from new clean energy investments. More

The company’s revenue also missed estimates, coming in at $737.1 million against the consensus of $820.33 million. The results reflect a period of strategic transformation for the utility company as it aims to become a pure-play regulated utility.In the first quarter, AQN experienced a 6% increase in net utility sales and a modest 1% rise in adjusted EBITDA. However, adjusted net earnings saw a significant decline of 20% compared to the same quarter last year. This was accompanied by an 18% decrease in adjusted EPS year-over-year (YoY). The company’s regulated services group revenue dropped by 7% YoY, while its renewable energy group revenue increased by 11%.Chris Huskilson, recently appointed as CEO after serving as interim CEO since August 2023, highlighted the company’s ongoing efforts to streamline operations and focus on its regulated utilities. He noted that while the regulated net utility sales and divisional operating profit showed growth, there is more work to be done to reduce costs and enhance the standalone business’s profitability.The company’s financial activities in the quarter included closing approximately $2.3 billion in financing transactions, signaling investor confidence in AQN’s long-term value creation strategy. These transactions included the issuance of senior notes and securitized utility tariff bonds, as well as the successful remarketing of senior notes.AQN’s focus on business simplification was evident in its acquisition of the remaining 50% equity interest in the Sandy Ridge II Wind Facility and the sale of various development assets. Despite these strategic moves, the winding down of the company’s development joint venture, increased interest expenses, and a normalization of tax credit recoveries contributed to the decline in adjusted net earnings per share.This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C. More

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TOKYO (Reuters) -The Bank of Japan must avoid raising interest rates to combat a weak yen, as higher borrowing costs would hit consumption and services inflation, Tsutomu Watanabe, a former central bank official and an expert on price trends, told Reuters.The BOJ ended eight years of negative interest rates and other remnants of its radical stimulus in March on prospects that rising wages will underpin consumption and keep inflation durably around its 2% target.BOJ policymakers have signaled the chance of further rate hikes on the view that rising wages and consumption will accelerate services inflation, which is key for Japan to achieve sustained price rises.When looking at actual data, however, services inflation has been weakening after peaking last autumn, suggesting sluggish consumption is discouraging firms from hiking prices, said Watanabe, who is a frequent speaker at BOJ-hosted seminars.”The BOJ is probably hoping that services inflation will strengthen. But the data coming out so far aren’t backing up this view,” he said in an interview on Thursday, criticising the March stimulus exit as having been premature.”None of the data we’ve seen so far offer the BOJ pressing reason to raise interest rates any time soon,” he added.While recent yen falls may start to push up goods prices, the BOJ should avoid raising rates until services inflation also accelerates, Watanabe said.A cost-driven rise in goods prices would sap households’ purchasing power and reduce spending on services, hampering the BOJ’s efforts to generate broad-based inflation driven by robust domestic demand, he said.”If the BOJ raises rates in response to rising goods prices, that will clearly weigh on services spending and hit already weak consumption,” Watanabe said.While a boost to exports, a weak yen has become a source of headache for Japanese policymakers as it hurts consumption by pushing up the cost of raw material imports.The yen’s recent falls to 34-year lows triggered suspected currency intervention by Japanese authorities last week, and have piled pressure on the BOJ to drop hawkish policy hints.BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda said on Wednesday the BOJ may take monetary policy action if yen falls affect prices significantly, offering the strongest hint to date the currency’s falls could trigger another rate hike.Watanabe said the BOJ may eventually need to hike short-term borrowing costs to 2% if inflation stays around 2% in 2025 and 2026, as it currently projects.But policymakers’ near-term focus should be on supporting households and firms hit by rising import costs from a weak yen, he said.”Wages will likely keep rising next year, so Japan’s wage dynamics have clearly changed,” Watanabe said. “But prices aren’t moving in a way the BOJ had hoped for.”A professor at the Graduate School of Economics at the University of Tokyo, Watanabe is an expert on Japan’s price trend, and a frequent member of government and BOJ panels.He is due to moderate a BOJ workshop to be held later this month, which is part of the central bank’s long-term review of its past monetary easing measures. More