Formosa II Wind Power Co (海能風力發電) and its suppliers would pay stamp tax of NT$119 million (US$3.78 million) to the Miaoli County Government as part of a local commitment, the company said yesterday.
The firm, 25 percent owned by Swancor Renewable Energy Co (上緯新能源) and 75 percent by Macquarie Capital Ltd, is in charge of developing the Formosa II wind farm off the county’s coast.
Three major partners would share the tax burden with Formosa II and other local suppliers, it said.
The partners are Fortune Electric Co (華城電機), which is to build an onshore electricity substation and power transmission systems, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA, which is to manufacture turbine units, and Jan De Nul Group, which is to build foundations and undersea cables.
Stamp tax is a one-off tax levied on documents, such as property transactions or construction contracts, and stands at 0.1 percent of the value of a construction contract, according to the Ministry of Finance.
Companies need to pay stamp duty when they sign a contract and they can choose the local government to which the tax will go, except for the property transfer tax, the ministry said.
Formosa II has discussed with its partners whether to sign the contracts in Taiwan, as some countries have lower stamp tax rates, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on condition of anonymity.
“As some of our suppliers are foreign companies, it took some time to persuade them to sign the documents in Taiwan and share the tax burden. However, we all agreed that it was a good way to show our commitment to local development,” the official said.
The tax payment would be a record for the county, Miaoli County Commissioner Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌) told reporters.
Formosa II has signed more than 60 contracts with local suppliers for their services, including environmental monitoring, energy storage systems, warehousing and crew transfer vessels, Swancor president Robert Tsai (蔡朝陽) said in a statement.
Formosa II would also try to find as many qualified domestic suppliers as possible to help the industry grow, the official said.
The company, which is to build total capacity of 376 megawatts, would finish the onshore substation and power system before the end of this year and begin underwater construction next year, it said.
Meanwhile, Wpd Taiwan Energy Co (達德能源), the developer of another offshore wind farm, which is required to be completed by the end of next year, said it would pay stamp tax of about NT$60 million to the Yunlin County Government in the third quarter of this year, a communications official surnamed Chang (張) said by telephone.
Wpd is to begin marine constructions in the first quarter of next year, she said.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day