Vice Premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄) said yesterday that the Cabinet would not announce a decision on whether it would cut the stock transaction tax until after a Cabinet meeting tomorrow.
Executive Yuan Spokeswoman Vanessa Shih (史亞平) dismissed media reports that the Cabinet and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) were at odds over the issue, with Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德) reportedly favoring a tax cut while the Cabinet remained cautious.
“The issue has been always under deliberation. We have not said anything about slashing or not slashing the stock transaction tax. A decision will be made based on professional assessment,” Shih said.
The ministry echoed Shih’s statement, saying it was weighing the pros and cons of the move and that the Cabinet would have the final say.
Vice Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ho (張盛和) said last night that the ministry did consider lowering the tax to bolster the stock market after the benchmark TAIEX shed 233.92 points yesterday.
Some pundits and investors blamed Lee for the slump, after saying on Monday morning that the government would lower the tax but modifying his statement on Monday eve by saying the government was still discussing the issue.
The proposed tax cut has drawn mixed reactions, with supporters hailing it as an effective remedy to boost the local bourse and opponents expressing doubts that it could have a long-term positive effect if the economic climate remained bleak.
Chang said the planned cut could also take on a different form, such as a fixed rate or an authorization that empowers the authorities to adjust the levy for a certain period of time, depending on the stock market’s performance.
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