Proposals to cut or abolish the capital gains tax on stocks yesterday drew fire from the Green Party Taiwan and Social Democratic Party (SDP) alliance.
SDP Chairman Fan Yun (范雲) accused the nation’s two main parties — the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — of a “fetishism” for tax cuts, claiming that their competing proposals to revise the securities transaction tax would effectively eliminate the capital gains tax.
“While using people to earn money is taxed at a relatively high rate and many office workers have to pay a tax rate of more than 15 percent, using money to make money is not taxed at all,” Fan said, adding that personal income taxes account for about 75 percent of the nation’s tax revenue, compared with an average of 45 percent for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries.
She said that double-digit capital gain taxes in countries such as the UK, Japan, South Korea and Singapore belied claims that lower taxes were necessary to “save” Taiwan’s stock market.
“Taxes paid by the wealthy are actually less than those paid by workers,” Anti-Poverty Alliance convener Chien Hsi-chieh said, adding that the effective tax rate on the nation’s wealthiest 5 percent was less than 6 percent because of low taxes on capital gains.
At a time when Taiwan’s debt and unfunded pension obligations account for more than 160 percent of GDP, the government should not cut taxes further, he said.
Individual capital gains taxes on securities currently only apply to initial public offerings (IPO), as well as the sale of “emerging” and “off-market” stocks, he said.
A capital gains tax on big traders who sell more than NT$1 billion (US$30.6 million) in stocks a year was originally set to go into effect this year, but was deferred for three years by last-minute legislative action.
KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) has proposed permanently eliminating the capital gains tax on “big traders” and IPOs. She has also called for cutting the securities transaction tax to 0.25 percent, while allowing traders to choose whether to pay an immediate additional 0.05 percent transaction tax or a 15 percent tax on any stock gains.
DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) has said that the party is proposing a “0.3 percent securities transaction tax and a 0.1 percent capital gains tax that would not be levied if the investor does not make any profit.”
The KMT has placed Hung’s proposal at the top of its agenda for the legislative session that opens today.
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
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
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
RSS