Amid opposition from academics, Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
"Reforms take a long time to realize and we don't want to rush this and then negatively impact the stock-investment environment," Lin said at the ministry's financial committee yesterday.
The proposal, prepared by Sun Ke-nan (
The government currently only levies only a 0.3-percent securities-exchange transaction tax (證交稅), creating a tax haven for earnings from equities.
As an academic, Lin was an advocate of a capital-gains tax in 2000. As a mastermind behind then presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian's (
When Lin came to head the finance ministry in December 2002, market watchers speculated that he may push for the tax, which had toppled two former finance ministers, including Shirley Kuo (郭婉容) in 1989 when the TAIEX fell for a 19 consecutive days.
Lin is not keen to rock the boat, siding with entrepreneurs who said that the tax would spook investors and put corporate fund-raising channels at risk.
"[If the new tax is implemented] Taiwan will have problems attracting foreign capital to invest in the stock market," said Theodore Huang (黃茂雄), chairman of the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce (工商協進會).
Sharing a similar view, vice chairwoman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development Ho Mei-yueh (
But Chen Ting-an (
Another hotly debated proposal was whether the government should end "inappropriate tax breaks," laid down in the "Statute for Upgrading Industries" (
In response, Ho and business representatives, including Huang and Lin Kun-chung (
But academics oppose the idea of giving out too many tax breaks, which they feel may erode the nation's tax base.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to