The Ministry of Finance will start strengthening tax inspections for online stores as soon as March next year to shovel more income into the nation's coffers, Vice Minister of Finance Gordon Chen (
The issue was brought up by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (
"We also require online retailers to file tax reports on their sales to customers via the Internet," Chen said. "Recently, we also sent out letters to remind online retailers to provide transaction statements to establish a basis for tax report reviewing."
As there are a considerable number of transactions made via online auctioneers like Yahoo-Kimo Inc (
Jerry Fong (馮震宇), a law professor at National Chengchi University who specializes in e-commerce, said online retailers should pay taxes from the standpoint of fairness, but how to implement taxation was a major challenge.
"The ministry even has problem tracking down some small stores or street vendors which evade taxes all the time, not mention taxing retailers in cyberspace," Fong said. "Whether or not transactions made from outside of Taiwan should be taxed is another problem."
As brick-and-mortar vendors can easily dodge taxes by lowering sale prices and not issuing invoices, online vendors could also play the same trick, Fong said.
A division director surnamed Tsai at the ministry's Department of the Treasury said the problem could be solved with the cooperation of local Internet service providers (ISPs), as the ministry is mulling asking ISPs to deny access to online retailers that do not register their businesses to the ministry.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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