The New Power Party (NPP) caucus yesterday announced that it has proposed a bill to legalize levying a vacancy tax to release more vacant homes onto the housing market and lower property prices.
Although the government has proposed an amendment to the House Tax Act (房屋稅條例) to levy a tax on people who own multiple houses, it would not effectively suppress speculation in the housing market, the party said.
“The Executive Yuan’s proposed amendment to the House Tax Act would authorize local governments to set progressive house tax rates, which would be capped at 4.8 percent, but local governments cannot be trusted to regulate the housing market, given their intricate relationships with real-estate developers,” NPP caucus whip Chiu Hsieh-chih (邱顯智) said at a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“Our draft act would authorize the central government to impose a vacancy tax on owners of multiple vacant homes. The amount of tax that they should pay would be determined by taking into account the number of vacant homes they have across the nation and the number of years that their homes stay vacant. This would deter real-estate speculators from hoarding houses without limit or consequence,” he said.
Aside from paying the house tax, owners of vacant homes would be charged a vacancy tax that could be six times more than the house tax they pay, Chiu said.
NPP Legislator Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said the vacancy tax draft act would also authorize the central government to impose a vacancy tax in areas with high housing prices and a high demand for rental homes, after considering regional differences in population, housing affordability, vacant home rates, supply and demand and changes in the rental home market.
Those owning vacant homes in some of the nation’s remote townships that lack market demand would not be charged the vacancy tax, Chen said, adding that this enables the government to target the real hoarders of vacant homes with precision.
NPP Chairwoman Claire Wang (王琬諭) said the purpose of levying a vacancy tax is not to increase tax revenues for local governments, but to compel owners of multiple homes to release vacant homes onto the market.
“Owners of multiple houses would be exempt from paying the vacancy tax if they rent out their vacant homes or participate in the government’s social housing programs. The vacant homes that they rent to others or are listed as social housing units would not be counted when calculating the total number of homes they own,” she said.
Revenue form the vacancy tax should be used to create a housing fund to expedite the construction of social housing units, Wang said.
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