Print

Mail

wiki links

Chipmakers fault minimum-tax plan

The nation's computer memory chipmakers yesterday called on the government to ponder reducing a proposed minimum 10-percent tax rate for corporations, citing the plan's impact on high-tech companies' operations.

"The Ministry of Finance's decision-making process was too rushed and a 10-percent tax rate is way too high," said Brian Shieh (謝再居), president of Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), the world's sixth-largest maker of computer memory chips.

Hsieh suggested setting the tax rate at 5 percent, and then reviewing and adjusting it periodically, arguing that the 10 percent rate would impose a heavy financial burden on the nation's capital-intensive high-tech industry, in particular on makers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, which need to invest hundreds of billions of NT dollars to upgrade technology.

The Ministry of Finance announced last week that it had provisionally approved the tax rates in its alternative minimum-tax proposal, with a rate of 10 percent for profitable corporations and 20 percent for high-income individuals.

Jih-chang (連日昌), president of Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation's biggest maker of computer-memory chips, urged the government to rethink.

The overly high tax rate of 10 percent would impact the nation's high-tech sector, which makes a considerable contribution to Taiwan's economic prosperity and employment situation, Lien said.
This story has been viewed 1598 times.