The capital gains tax proposal approved by the Cabinet on Thursday will not be referred to the legislature for review right away, because the Ministry of Finance needs to explain the difference between its initial version and the final version to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Lin Yi-shih (林益世) said yesterday.
Delaying sending the amendment to the legislature for a couple of days does not mean the Executive Yuan would make further changes to the proposal after its approval at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, Lin said.
“There were some adjustments made to the ministry’s initial proposal, which warrant explaining so KMT lawmakers will understand how the ministry’s initial ideas were revised by the Cabinet,” he said.
Lin said the Executive Yuan has not set a timeframe for passage of the amendment, adding that it seemed unlikely that it would clear the legislature this session, which has less than two months to go before going into recess.
Several KMT lawmakers have presented their own proposals on a capital gains tax.
KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) suggested raising the tax-free threshold for individual investors from NT$4 million (US$136,800) to NT$6 million, lowering the tax rate from between 15 percent and 20 percent to 10 percent, allowing taxpayers to have their taxation cut in half if they hold shares in excess of three years and extending the period for taxpayers to offset losses to five years from the three years the Executive Yuan suggested.
KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said he would initiate an amendment to the Securities Transaction Tax Act (證券交易稅條例) to lower the 0.3 percent tax rate to 0.2 percent.
KMT Legislator Tseng Chu-wei (曾巨威) has proposed a progressive tax rate of 5 percent to 40 percent for individual investors who sell initial public offering investments for the first time; whose total income excluding securities income is more than NT$3 million; who earn less than NT$500,000, but make at least NT$50 million in securities transactions a year; and whose annual transaction amount in futures and shares exceeds NT$100 million.
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
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