Good morning, Portugal has made it illegal for bosses to send a text to employees after work hours.
Ana Mendes Godinho, Portugal’s Minister of Labor and Social Security, said that the law is intended to improve work-life balance and attract more fully remote workers.
Indian bosses however, have cracked the work-life balance code long ago - call for meetings at the office all day and then frantically text and call employees after work hours to get them to actually work.
FYI, emails are not banned though and we are a tad happier that we chose the right medium for Ginger Chai. 😉
Now Buy A Home With Bitcoin
In June this year, Latin American country El Salvador made history as the first country to name Bitcoin legal tender.
Currently, millions of dollars of remittances to Latin America are being done using cryptocurrencies and this widespread use and acceptance is pushing all kinds of businesses to accept cryptocurrency as payment.
Why should real estate be an exception?
Bezos Backed Proptech App Says Aye To Bitcoin
Per Bloomberg, La Haus, a Latin American proptech startup backed by Bezos Expeditions, recently announced that Bitcoin for real estate transactions are now welcome.
The tech startup, which allows users to purchase homes through an app, will allow home buyers to pay with the digital currency, starting with a housing development in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
It will eventually open the rest of its inventory of more than 80,000 properties to Bitcoin.
Zooming In
To enable seamless crypto payments by home buyers, La Haus is tying up with Los Angeles-based payment processor OpenNode.
With OpenNode's tech, La Haus' customers can transact both on-chain and over the Lightning Network, which is designed to make purchases quicker and easier.
La Haus will act as an intermediary, paying the sellers in fiat**.
Any Downsides?
One potential drawback to using bitcoin for such transfers? Notorious volatility. Despite that, bitcoin is actually more stable than certain Latin American countries’ fiat currencies. 🙈
Also, analysts expect Latin American remittances to become blockchain’s most mature payments application over the next five years.
💡 **Fiat Currency/Money - Fiat money is a type of money that is not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver, and derives its value solely from the trust that people place on it.
Happy Homecoming
26 cultural artefacts seized by French colonial soldiers in 1892 returned to Benin on Wednesday, a great moment in the long fight by African countries to recover looted artefacts.
The works, which include the doors of the Palace of Abomey, royal thrones and warrior dance staffs, were formally welcomed back to Benin at a ceremony presided over by President Patrice Talon.
This restitution is the largest France has made to a former colony, but it represents only a fraction of the 5,000 works whose return Benin is seeking and the tens of thousands of seized African works held in France.
Image - Reuters
Taxman Comes Home For Chai
Municipal bodies across India need dump truckloads of money to ensure that citizens receive all kinds of services to lead a hassle free life.
So without doubt, it hurts when property taxes, a primary source of revenue for municipal bodies, are not paid by owners.
Aspirin Sales Up
Property tax defaulters are a major headache for municipal bodies today and despite notices and cajoling, their numbers just seem to be going up.
Take Bengaluru's BBMP for example. It has an annual budget of INR 10,000 crore and expects 35% (INR 3,500 crore) of that to come in as property tax revenue.
But non-paying, evading and repeat-offending property owners are throwing a spanner in the works each year, resulting in the revenue target skewing slightly towards becoming an annual joke.
In Chandigarh, of around 40,000 commercial property tax payees, only 14,000 had paid the tax, per August 2021 data. 20,000 residential property owners were yet to pay their taxes too.
Collection Strategies
With increasing budget deficits and the immense pressure the pandemic has put on civic bodies, writing off property tax receivables is no more an option.
The Gurugram civic body rolled out a zero penalty discounted tax scheme that it ran till September 30, 2021. This has resulted in a significant increase in property tax revenue.
However, thousands of payees are yet to wire their dues to the corporation.
Knock Knock, Who's There?
The tax man.
The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) has notched things up a bit higher though.
They visited 150 homes which had defaulted on water tax payments and - got 120 of them to pay up a cumulative amount of INR 90 lacs, and axed the water connection to the other 30 homes.
For property tax defaulters, the strategy remains the same and a drive is on, yielding significant good news for the corporation's receivables department.
Half A Cup Extra
- Delhi government forms fifth municipal valuation committee (MVC) to give property tax related advice to civic bodies.
- Efforts to reduce crop-waste burning, a major source of air pollution during the winter, have achieved very little.
- Avenue Supermarts Ltd, which owns and operates retail chain DMart, has bought retail space in Bengaluru for ₹88.25 crore.
Going For The Source
🎙 “Now we have shown that one can successfully litigate against fossil fuel corporations and I think that the next step is to start also litigating against financial institutions who make these emissions and fossil fuel projects possible.” - Roger Cox, lawyer for the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth.
Per this COP26 report on CNBC, financiers could be the next targets of climate litigation cases, according to the campaigners who helped secure a landmark courtroom victory against oil giant Royal Dutch Shell.
The Backstory
On May 26, the Hague District Court had ordered the Anglo-Dutch oil giant to reduce its global carbon emissions by 45% by the end of 2030.
It also clarified that Shell is responsible for its own carbon emissions plus those of its suppliers, known as Scope 3 emissions.
This ruling marked the first time in history in which a company had been legally obliged to align its policies with the Paris Agreement, creating a watershed moment in the war for a greener planet.
Court Is The Last Option
The activists aren't being brazen about dragging financial institutions to court straight away, but want to use that option as a deterrent.
The group feels that;
- With the young gathering on the streets for climate action.
- Activist shareholders creating pressure on board members to reduce emissions.
- And a bombshell report from the International Energy Agency that said - it sees “no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply”
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We hope you have a great weekend.
See you on Monday morning. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai