Lawmakers across party lines yesterday agreed to July 1 as the provisional date on which a draft amendment to the Income Tax Act (所得稅法) is to come into effect, with the aim of curbing real-estate speculation.
The consensus was reached following interparty negotiations at the legislature’s Finance Committee to determine when revisions to the “integrated house and land transaction income tax” would take effect.
The committee on Monday last week passed a number of revisions to the act, but failed to agree on when they would take effect.
Photo: CNA
Under the proposed revisions, the tax would be set at 45 percent of gains on the sale of property within two years of purchase and 35 percent of gains on property sales made within two to five years of purchase.
For foreign nationals and companies, the tax rate on property sales would be 35 percent on any property held for more than two years.
The same tax rate would be imposed on individuals and businesses to prevent individuals from setting up companies to buy and sell property, and paying only 20 percent corporate income tax on gains.
At present, the integrated house and land transaction income tax rate is 45 percent of gains on sales of property made within a year of purchase and 35 percent of gains on sales of property made within one to two years of purchase — but those rates only apply to individuals.
The revisions also widen the scope of properties to which the tax applies.
For example, the tax currently applies only to transactions of existing residential properties not considered to be for “self-use,” whereas the new measure would also apply to the sale of presale homes, above-ground use of land rights (superficies) and special shareholdings.
The measures would be applied retroactively to transactions from 2016.
Lawmakers also agreed to add a clause to the revisions in which individuals and businesses given a share of a land or property as a result of urban renewal projects would enjoy a 20 percent tax on gains made from property sales made within five years.
The proposed revisions have been sent to the legislature’s plenary session for discussion.
The integrated house and land transaction income tax was introduced in 2016 to reduce property speculation, especially in the residential property market.
The latest measures have been proposed as the property market heats up at a time of high liquidity and low interest rates.
Semiconductor business between Taiwan and the US is a “win-win” model for both sides given the high level of complementarity, the government said yesterday responding to tariff threats from US President Donald Trump. Home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Taiwan is a key link in the global technology supply chain for companies such as Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp. Trump said on Monday he plans to impose tariffs on imported chips, pharmaceuticals and steel in an effort to get the producers to make them in the US. “Taiwan and the US semiconductor and other technology industries
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of
RSS