Reforms to the nation’s finances are expected to be initiated by mid-September, as government officials, industry representatives and experts reached a consensus to hold a series of meetings led by the Cabinet, Minister of Finance Christina Liu (劉憶如) said yesterday.
Liu said the Cabinet would set up a task force to discuss taxation and finance issues and decide which needs to be addressed first.
The task force’s primary role would be to prevent structural deficits in public finances from deteriorating further, while at the same time maintaining fiscal flexibility to deal with possible global economic uncertainties in the future, Liu said.
“We hope the task force can be set up in mid-March at the earliest,” Liu told reporters at a press conference. “The ministry has submitted the plan to the Cabinet for review.”
The proposed task force is expected to be comprised of about 20 members, including representatives from related government agencies, social groups and academia, Liu said, adding that Premier Sean Chen (陳冲), who will be the convener of the task force, would announce the complete list of members soon.
Liu said the task force would be in charge of setting the agenda on finance issues through a series of intensive meetings and it would distribute the issues to smaller groups for further discussion.
“For those smaller groups, we will invite more representatives, such as industrial representatives, to join the meetings to get opinions from all aspects,” Liu said.
Liu did not specify which finance or tax issues would be discussed during the task force’s first round of meetings, but emphasized that all issues that most Taiwanese care about would be included.
Meanwhile, the “ability-to-pay” principle in a taxation system toward social fairness and justice previously announced by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would be the task force’s main focus, Liu added.
However, Liu said issues that had been focused on in previous finance reform committee meetings — launched in 2001 — and the tax reform committee — launched in 2008 — but not yet executed, would be discussed again in the task force’s meetings in the near future.
“We will determine the substantial hardships in applying the issues that had been discussed before and come up with pragmatic methods to address them,” she said.
The task force’s mission would be based on the concept of execution and pragmatism, Liu said, adding that all of the meetings would be open to the public to gain a wider range of opinions.
VALUABLE STOCK: The company closed at NT$1,005 a share, on demand for AI and HPC chips, and is expected to issue a positive report during its earnings conference Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares rose 2.66 percent to close at a record high of NT$1,005 yesterday. as investors expect the company to continue benefiting from strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) chips. TSMC is the 19th member of the local bourse’s NT$1,000 stock club, which includes smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) and electric transformer manufacturer Fortune Electric Co (華城電機). Yesterday’s rally swelled TSMC’s market capitalization to NT$26.06 trillion (US$802.3 billion) and contributed about 211 points to the TAIEX, which closed up 350.1 points, or 1.51 percent, to 23,522.53, another record high, Taiwan Stock
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) unloaded shares worth nearly US$169 million last month, the most he has netted in a single month, as insatiable demand for the chips used to power artificial intelligence (AI) drove the stock to fresh peaks. The sale of 1.3 million shares, his first of the year, came during a month when Nvidia’s market value rose above US$3 trillion for the first time. That briefly made it the world’s most valuable company and pushed Huang, 61, into the rarefied group of ultra-rich with fortunes above US$100 billion. The series of transactions were executed under a 10b5-1 trading
Google on Monday said it is planning to invest in New Green Power Co (NGP, 永鑫能源), a solar energy developer owned by BlackRock Inc, to build 1 gigawatt of solar capacity in Taiwan to supply clean energy for its local data center and offices. “Our investment in NGP, subject to regulatory approval, will serve as development capital toward its 1 GW pipeline of new solar projects, catalyzing critical equity and debt financing for those projects,” Google’s Data Center Energy global head Amanda Peterson Corio wrote on a company blog. It did not disclose financial details. “We expect to procure up to 300 megawatts
Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), a subsidiary of Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車), yesterday said it is again offering a NT$100,000 discount for its entry-level n7 electric vehicle models. The n7’s price has gone down from NT$1.099 million to NT$999,000, Luxgen said, adding that there are 25,000 preorders for the model. MG Motor’s electric hatchback, the MG4, entered the market in the middle of last month, with a starting price of NT$990,000. China Motor Corp (中華汽車), which distributes MG vehicles in Taiwan, said it aims to sell 1,600 MG4s this year. MG, originally a British brand, was acquired by China’s SAIC Motor