The Cabinet yesterday finalized plans to curb real-estate speculation by introducing a tax of up to 15 percent on the sale of properties — including residential, commercial or vacant lots not for self-use — and a 10 percent tax on luxury goods with a price tag exceeding NT$3 million (US$101,700).
Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德) told a press conference following the Cabinet meeting that the draft act on tax levied on specific goods and services (特種貨物及勞務稅條例) could come into effect on July 1.
SLOW DOWN
“The purpose of the bill is to slow down the frequency of property sales and address public discontent with rising commodity prices [partly] driven by consumption of high-priced products,” Lee said.
Lee said the implementation of the tax on the sale of non-self-use properties would stabilize the market rather than deal a blow to the real estate industry, because only an estimated 20,000 property transactions would be subject to the tax.
The draft act stipulates that owners of residential units, commercial units or vacant lots owned for less than one year, would be taxed 15 percent of the selling price, or 10 percent if they had owned the property for more than one year but less than two.
Article 5 of the draft act includes 10 exemptions.
Among them are situations when the seller owns only one property that is not leased out for business purposes; when the property is sold to the government or ordered by authorities to be auctioned off; and when an owner sells a property owned for less than two years within one year of buying a new one.
Owners would also be exempt when they sell property that was inherited or given to them and when they are forced by banks to dispose of property used as collateral to secure a mortgage or pledge.
Lee said the draft act also entitled the Ministry of Finance to make exemptions in certain cases as long as the transactions are made in accordance with the principles of “rationality, normality and non-voluntary transfer.”
The government also said it would impose a 10 percent tax on the sale of certain luxury goods, including vehicles, yachts, airplanes, helicopters and ultra-light carriers retailing for more than NT$3 million as well as furniture, goods made of turtle shell, hawksbill turtles, coral, ivory or animal fur valued at more than NT$500,000.
FINES
Lee said that sellers are responsible for reporting taxable transactions to authorities within 30 days and, under the draft act, people who evaded the tax would be fined three times the value of the tax they would otherwise have paid.
No sunset clause has been set to end the tax hike at a future date because the tax is designed as a perpetual normalizing measure to stabilize the housing market, Lee said.
Tax revenues collected under the act would be used to finance social welfare programs, Lee said, although he did not give an estimate of possible annual revenue.
Additional reporting by CNA
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS