The dropping of a tax agreement with China on Tuesday is not necessarily a bad thing for Taiwan and proves that the deal will have to gain more support before being signed, experts said.
Representatives from Taiwan and China signed three agreements on Tuesday: on agricultural inspection and quarantine cooperation, industrial standards testing and certification cooperation, as well as fishery labor cooperation.
A fourth item on the agenda — an agreement on avoiding double taxation and strengthening tax cooperation — was not signed, as the two sides failed to reach a consensus, citing “technical issues.”
The development marked the first time since cross-strait talks resumed last year after a nine-year hiatus that an agreement that had been put on the agenda was not signed.
“China never presumes it has to reach concrete results before entering negotiations,” National Taiwan University economics professor Kenneth Lin (林向愷) said.
“Not being able to sign the agreement … is not necessarily a bad thing for us. We don’t have to set a deadline and tie our hands,” he said.
Most Taiwanese businesspeople investing in China do so through companies in a third country to avoid being taxed, Lin said, adding that Taiwanese business operators are mostly concerned that “China has been using tax inspections as a tool to pester Taiwanese businesses in China.”
Tax agreements are usually signed between allies, friendly countries or countries at similar levels of economic development, but that is not the case between Taiwan and China, Lin said.
“The key here is not tax issues but political issues, such as the wording of the document,” he said.
“At the end of the day, a government has to protect its taxpayers,” Lin said.
Others looked at the negotiations in a different light.
Yin Nai-ping (殷乃平), a professor of finance at National Chengchi University, said the “technical issues” that nixed talks on taxation were related to the avoidance of double taxation.
“Taiwan may have requested that Taiwanese companies that are investing indirectly in China through a third country be included on the double taxation list in the negotiations, but China refused to accept this,” Yin said.
Taiwan’s opposition parties have questioned whether taxpayer information could end up in the hands of the Chinese authorities once an agreement on tax cooperation takes effect, which has raised concerns among local businesspeople, Yin said.
“The widespread uneasiness over the issue made Taiwanese officials particularly cautious in the talks,” he said.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
Nipah virus infection is to be officially listed as a category 5 notifiable infectious disease in Taiwan in March, while clinical treatment guidelines are being formulated, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. With Nipah infections being reported in other countries and considering its relatively high fatality rate, the centers on Jan. 16 announced that it would be listed as a notifiable infectious disease to bolster the nation’s systematic early warning system and increase public awareness, the CDC said. Bangladesh reported four fatal cases last year in separate districts, with three linked to raw date palm sap consumption, CDC Epidemic Intelligence
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
US climber Alex Honnold left Taiwan this morning a day after completing a free-solo ascent of Taipei 101, a feat that drew cheers from onlookers and gained widespread international attention. Honnold yesterday scaled the 101-story skyscraper without a rope or safety harness. The climb — the highest urban free-solo ascent ever attempted — took just more than 90 minutes and was streamed live on Netflix. It was covered by major international news outlets including CNN, the New York Times, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal. As Honnold prepared to leave Taiwan today, he attracted a crowd when he and his wife, Sanni,
RSS