The Executive Yuan yesterday approved an amendment to the Motion Picture Act (電影法) that it hopes will boost the nation’s status as international filmmaking destination by proposing tax incentives for local and overseas-based production companies.
Should the proposed amendment be passed by the legislature, foreign companies would be able to obtain a refund on the value-added tax, a form of consumption tax added to a product’s price, that they pay while filming in Taiwan.
Not only would the bill help attract foreign film productions and increase job opportunities, films in which Taiwan is depicted would also help project the image of the nation as a travel destination and generate more tourism revenue, the Ministry of Culture said.
The amendment would also benefit local production companies by making up to 30 percent of the investment a company makes in a film tax deductible, allowing the firm to offset its business income tax.
According to the proposal, tax credits would be provided each year for up to 10 years after the amendment has been passed.
The amendment also proposes removing what it calls “outdated” articles, including regulations that prohibit people whose education level is below senior-high school or who have been charged with sedition, treason or fraud from operating a production company.
Other “outdated” articles to be removed include requiring that a motion picture “contribute to the dissemination of Chinese culture and coordination of national policy,” “be effective in inspiring patriotic sentiment and boosting the morale of the people” and “be meaningful in the advocacy of ethics and morality and establishing proper social practice,” the ministry said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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