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Movie tax breaks extended

The legislature yesterday passed an amendment to the Motion Picture Law (電影法) to extend tax breaks for businesses investing in film productions for another five years to 2014.

Businesses offering funds to film producers are entitled to receive 20 percent tax deductions for five years on their enterprise income tax based on the prices of the shares they possess for more than three years, but the tax break clause was scheduled to expire next month.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Sun Ta-chien (孫大千), the sponsor of the bill, said the extension would give a boost to the film industry as its biggest problem has been a lack of funds.

The amended law also stipulated that the Government Information Office — the film industry’s regulatory agency — should coordinate with other departments of the central and local governments to help producers with problems they might encounter while shooting.

An amendment to the Communicable Disease Prevention and Control Law (傳染病防治法) also passed the legislature to create a national fund to pay for development and procurement of vaccines.

Centers for Disease Control Director Steve Kuo (郭旭崧) had said the government planned to set up a NT$2 billion (US$61.5 million) fund to ensure a stable source of funding, four times higher than the amount covered by the annual government budget, which he said was insufficient.

Meanwhile, the legislature also passed an amendment to the Medical Treatment Law (醫療法) that would allow nonprofit foundations to introduce heavy-ion therapy to Taiwan.

In October, Evergreen Group chairman Chang Yung-fa (張榮發) denounced the government for rejecting his foundation’s proposal to build a cancer center equipped with a heavy-ion treatment facility, and said he had abandoned the project.

His complaint drew the attention of Minister of Health Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) and lawmakers who then initiated a move to amend the regulation.

The law would allow nonprofits with plans to establish clinical treatment centers with a certain amount of paid-in capital to purchase dangerous medical devices from abroad as long as they obtain import permits from the department.
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