The Ministry of Finance is scheduled to release its review of the so-called “luxury tax” by the end of this month, Taxation Agency Deputy Director-General Hsu Tzu-mei (許慈美) said yesterday.
The ministry will also host a public hearing next month before moving to revise the tax, Hsu told at a press conference.
The special sales tax on selected goods and services was imposed on June 1, 2011, in a bid to curb speculative property transactions and soaring property prices in major metropolitan areas.
The government imposed a 15 percent tax on properties resold within one year of purchase and a 10 percent tax on those resold within two years of purchase.
“The implementation of the tax has had some effect in curbing speculative transactions in the real-estate market,” Hsu said.
Compared with January 2011, the number of property transactions in the nation’s five major urban areas all showed a declining trend last month, the ministry said, citing data from local government’s land administrations.
Hsu said the ministry has come up with some proposed changes to the tax, following the commissioning of the Chunghua Association of Public Finance in December last year to study the effect of the tax and ways to improve it.
Based on the preliminary review, taxation experts have suggested the ministry extend the tax to cover properties resold within three years or more, and consider levying an additional tax to buyers who have already owned various properties.
However, more discussion is needed on these suggestions, which is why the ministry has planned the public hearing, Hsu said.
As of the end of last month, the luxury tax had brought in NT$8.66 billion (US$289.39 million), with revenue from the tax attributable to real-estate transactions accounting for around 60 percent to 70 percent, the ministry’s latest data shows.
The ministry has been stepping up its inspection of the luxury tax attributable to real-estate transactions. The amount of luxury tax repaid after inspections totals NT$620.66 million so far, with NT$592.18 million collected from fines, ministry statistics showed.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure