The Ministry of Finance said yesterday the “luxury tax” that was implemented on June 1 has helped slow both speculative transactions and unreasonably high housing prices in the real-estate market.
Revenue from the special tax on selected goods and services, also known as the luxury tax, totaled NT$1.72 billion (US$56.66 million) from June 1 to Nov. 30, with that from the levy on property transactions reaching NT$1.09 billion on 1,533 transactions during the period, the ministry said in a report.
“The six-month implementation of the selected goods and services tax has slowed the number of speculative transactions and prices in the housing market, especially in urban areas,” Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德) told a press conference.
From June to October, the number of buildings sold nationwide declined 14.86 percent to 138,717 from a year earlier, with transactions in Taipei and New Taipei City (新北市) sliding 23.03 percent and 26.55 percent to 18,420 and 31,520 respectively, both above average, Lee said, citing data from the Ministry of the Interior.
Lee attributed the decline to there being less speculative transactions, saying many speculative investors have left the market following the levy of the luxury tax.
In addition, the average real-estate price in Taipei fell 11.89 percent, the largest decline among five major urban areas in Taiwan, to NT$481,700 per ping (3.3m2) in August, from NT$535,200 per ping in May, a month before implementing the luxury tax, the ministry’s report said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (聯合金融徵信中心, JCIC).
Meanwhile, the center’s preliminary data showed that prices in Taipei had further declined in September to an average of NT$419,600 per ping, the ministry said.
Real-estate agencies, however, did not see prices in Taipei decline as much as the ministry said.
Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) yesterday said in a press release that prices in Taipei averaged NT$499,000 per ping for last month, only down NT$16,000, or 3.1 percent, from NT$515,000 per ping in May, citing data from the agency’s own research database.
Separately, an investment trust company yesterday won an auction for a floor in an office building on Dunhua South Road with a bid nearly equal to the floor price, auction organizer Savills Taiwan Ltd (第一太平戴維斯) said in a statement.
The winning bidder was the sole participant and Savills Taiwan said the recently passed property transaction disclosure rule dampened competition.
Additional reporting by Crystal Hsu
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS