A significant majority of Taiwanese plan to pass their assets on to their children, with property and land the most popular forms of inheritance, a survey jointly conducted by the Center of Opinion Survey and Market Research at National Chengchih University and CTBC Bank (中信銀) showed yesterday.
About 68.6 percent of those polled said they want to pass on their wealth to the next generation of their family, while 31.4 percent said they have no plans to do so, the survey found, after polling 1,068 adults who are responsible for managing wealth in their households.
“Taiwanese have a tendency to leave their fortune — if they have one — to their children, while an increasing amount of foreigners prefer to donate their wealth to charity,” said National Chengchih University statistics professor Jeng Tian-tzer (鄭天澤), who led the survey.
Only 23.7 percent of respondents said they had inherited assets from their parents, with 75.6 percent indicating they had not, the survey said.
Jeng expressed little surprise at the results because most of the participants were 25 and older, and Taiwanese parents normally hold on to their wealth until very late in life.
Among those who inherited assets from their parents, 62.8 percent said they were left real estate, 59.7 percent acquired plots of land, 22.9 percent obtained cash and 1.6 percent got insurance policies, the survey showed.
There is a high prevalence of bequeathing assets among parents who make more than NT$150,000 (US$5,000) a month or who have overall family assets in excess of NT$30 million, especially if they only have one child, Jeng said.
Property was the most popular asset to pass on, with 77.7 percent of parents saying they wanted to leave their children houses, the survey said.
About 34 percent of the respondents indicated that they would prefer to pass on land, another 18.9 percent to leave living funds and 14.9 percent intend to provide education funds, according to the survey.
The poll also found that a majority of the parents surveyed — 51 percent — do not educate their children on wealth management and that 71.3 percent of those who do equate wealth management with bank savings, the survey said.
CTBC Bank senior vice president John Yang (楊子宏) said most parents will have difficulty realizing their wish to leave their children a sufficient inheritance if they rely solely on bank savings to boost asset values.
CTBC was previously known as Chinatrust Commercial Bank before it renamed itself in late June.
It costs NT$8.46 million to buy a 30 ping (99m2) apartment in suburban areas in Greater Taipei and that number rises sharply in popular districts, Yang said, recommending families adopt more aggressive wealth management methods to take advantage of the low interest rate environment and increase their asset holdings.
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last