The Cabinet yesterday finalized plans to curb real-estate speculation by introducing a tax of up to 15 percent on the sale of properties — including residential, commercial or vacant lots not for self-use — and a 10 percent tax on luxury goods with a price tag exceeding NT$3 million (US$101,700).
Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德) told a press conference following the Cabinet meeting that the draft act on tax levied on specific goods and services (特種貨物及勞務稅條例) could come into effect on July 1.
SLOW DOWN
“The purpose of the bill is to slow down the frequency of property sales and address public discontent with rising commodity prices [partly] driven by consumption of high-priced products,” Lee said.
Lee said the implementation of the tax on the sale of non-self-use properties would stabilize the market rather than deal a blow to the real estate industry, because only an estimated 20,000 property transactions would be subject to the tax.
The draft act stipulates that owners of residential units, commercial units or vacant lots owned for less than one year, would be taxed 15 percent of the selling price, or 10 percent if they had owned the property for more than one year but less than two.
Article 5 of the draft act includes 10 exemptions.
Among them are situations when the seller owns only one property that is not leased out for business purposes; when the property is sold to the government or ordered by authorities to be auctioned off; and when an owner sells a property owned for less than two years within one year of buying a new one.
Owners would also be exempt when they sell property that was inherited or given to them and when they are forced by banks to dispose of property used as collateral to secure a mortgage or pledge.
Lee said the draft act also entitled the Ministry of Finance to make exemptions in certain cases as long as the transactions are made in accordance with the principles of “rationality, normality and non-voluntary transfer.”
The government also said it would impose a 10 percent tax on the sale of certain luxury goods, including vehicles, yachts, airplanes, helicopters and ultra-light carriers retailing for more than NT$3 million as well as furniture, goods made of turtle shell, hawksbill turtles, coral, ivory or animal fur valued at more than NT$500,000.
FINES
Lee said that sellers are responsible for reporting taxable transactions to authorities within 30 days and, under the draft act, people who evaded the tax would be fined three times the value of the tax they would otherwise have paid.
No sunset clause has been set to end the tax hike at a future date because the tax is designed as a perpetual normalizing measure to stabilize the housing market, Lee said.
Tax revenues collected under the act would be used to finance social welfare programs, Lee said, although he did not give an estimate of possible annual revenue.
Additional reporting by CNA
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
RSS