Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has agreed to suspend a plan that would impose higher taxes on brokers’ revenue generated from hosting events at the Taipei Arena, Taipei Deputy Mayor Chen Ching-jun (陳景峻) said yesterday.
The plan would be put on hold until more comprehensive accompanying measures are formulated, Chen said after a meeting with more than 30 representatives from the entertainment business.
The plan, originally scheduled for implementation next year, would raise the rent for the arena from NT$525,000 (US$16,271) to NT$540,000 on weekdays, and to NT$900,000 on weekends.
It would also cancel the NT$1.89 million upper limit of taxable profits made by entertainment brokers.
The city government sparked an industry outcry when the plan was announced late last month, prompting record label B’in Music (相信音樂) to lead a coalition of companies in issuing a statement slamming what it said was an “arrogant” decision by the city government.
The decision would hamper the development of the nation’s entertainment industry because of the hefty financial pressure it would put on performers and concert-goers, the statement added.
Earlier yesterday, several Taipei City councilors slammed the plan during a Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) briefing. The TRTC oversees operations of the Taipei Arena.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor William Hsu (徐弘庭) said neither the stadium in Taichung nor Kaohsiung taxes tenants such high rates, and said the move would discourage performers from giving shows at the venue.
Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Hsu Shu-hua (許淑華) said that the move would drive away visitors to the arena and make stores in and near the arena suffer.
Both city councilors said that the plan would drive down the arena’s revenue and be counterproductive to the aim of increasing the city’s income.
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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