The Ministry of the Interior plans to use tax incentives to encourage landowners to lease unused apartments to the government for use as public housing, Deputy Minister of the Interior Hua Ching-chun (花敬群) said yesterday.
“The problem with past policy is that there was not any income incentive for landlords,” he said. “Landowners would be penalized for participating and that is a reality we have to face.”
Given widespread rental income tax evasion, landowners in the past have been reluctant to participate in government sponsored rental programs because of taxes on income earned, he said, adding that the new administration plans to cut taxes to encourage landowners to legalize their income, as part of plans for the government to lease 80,000 privately owned housing units in urban areas to rent to members of disadvantaged groups.
Hua added that the administration would follow through with the previous administration’s construction and subsidy commitments as part of its goal of constructing 120,000 housing units over eight years, even as it borrows to cover the more than NT$200 billion (US$6.13 billion) in estimated construction costs rather than directly budgeting funds.
“Building better and more refined public housing does not imply that we have to spend a ton of money,” he said, adding that rather than paying up front, the government would pay off loans over a 50-year time frame with rental income derived from the properties.
While construction details would depend on the plans of local governments, New Taipei City would likely host the largest number, he said, estimating that 80 percent would be within the greater Taipei metropolitan area because of the greater need.
Many of the units could be constructed along the Keelung River (基隆河) corridor as part of government plans to transform Taipei’s rail link with Keelung into a mass rapid transit line (MRT), he said.
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
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