The new Minister of Finance Ho Chih-chin (
"I will negotiate with the legislature to cancel the income tax exemptions for teachers and military personnel and push forward reforms on consumption taxes," he said during a press briefing on the first day of assuming office.
Formerly the head of the economics department at National Taiwan University, the 54-year-old Ho took over from Joseph Lyu (呂桔誠) yesterday. Lyu is now serving as a minister without portfolio after his five-month stint at the ministry.
Ho, an expert on tax and public economics, said Taiwan rarely reviewed its tax schemes, leading to a lot of duplication in tax exemptions and preferential treatments.
To promote fair taxation and boost efficiency, he vowed to introduce a better tax system from abroad and help achieve fiscal balance by 2011.
Regarding the much-debated inheritance and gift taxes, Ho said the maximum rate for inheritance and gift taxes should be lowered from the current 50 percent to 40 percent in the short term.
The government cannot afford to cancel both taxes as it has just stopped levying a capital-gains tax on income from stocks (
"If the inheritance and gift taxes are scrapped or their tax rates are reduced to a minimal level, there'd be no way to uphold social justice," he said.
In addition, the two taxes are the main revenue source for local governments, he said.
As for the controversial second-stage financial reform, Ho appeared more cautious, saying he would follow Premier Su Tseng-chang's (蘇貞
Declaring his resolution to serve the nation, Ho said he was determined to renounce his US citizenship and to resign from his teaching position at the university.
With a PhD in economics from the University of Michigan, Ho worked at the US Department of Justice and the US Department of the Treasury for 15 years before coming back to Taiwan in 2003.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the