The Legislative Yuan on Friday approved several tax reform measures aimed at narrowing Taiwan’s rich-poor divide that could increase tax revenues by an estimated NT$65 billion (US$2.16 billion) a year.
The amendments to the Income Tax Act (所得稅法) give average taxpayers a break through higher deductions that will reduce their taxable income. The standard deduction is to increase from NT$79,000 to NT$90,000 for single payers and from NT$158,000 to NT$180,000 for married couples.
In addition, the special deduction on salary and for people with disabilities will be raised from NT$108,000 to NT$128,000.
The higher deductions and other tax breaks will cost the government an estimated NT$15 billion in revenues, to be partially offset by an increase in the highest marginal tax rate for individual taxpayers to 45 percent, applicable to annual taxable income above NT$10 million. The measure is expected to generate an estimated NT$9.9 billion a year in revenues, officials said.
The “imputation tax credit” — the share of an investor’s tax paid by a company on the profit from which that person’s dividends are paid — will be cut in half, adding another NT$50.5 billion in tax revenues, according to Ministry of Finance estimates.
Also passed was an amendment to the Value-added and Non-value-added Business Tax Act (加值型及非加值型營業稅法) that is to increase the business tax rate on “core business” revenues of banks and insurers from 2 percent to 5 percent.
The business tax rate was 5 percent until 1999, when the government lowered it to help reduce the financial burden of banks battered by the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s.
The measure should increase revenues by NT$18.1 billion a year, the finance ministry estimated.
Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) estimated on Friday that an additional NT$65 billion will be raised by the government annually.
The income tax adjustments are to take effect on Jan. 1 next year and be reflected when taxpayers file in 2016.
The increase in the business tax on financial services could take effect in July at the earliest, the ministry said.
The amendments are part of what the government describes as a “feedback tax” system, under which some businesses and high-income earners are being asked to give back to society through higher taxes.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,