The New Power Party (NPP) is to promote a progressive property tax to control home prices, caucus whip Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said yesterday.
According to draft amendments to the House Tax Act (房屋稅條例) proposed by the NPP, owners of more than three residential properties would face levies that increase with the number they own.
Fourth and fifth properties would be taxed an additional 2.4 to 3.6 percent of each property’s value, Huang said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
For the sixth and seventh, the additional rate would be 3.6 percent to 4.8 percent, while for the eighth and ninth it would be 4.8 percent to 6 percent, he said.
For the tenth and onward, each would be taxed an additional 10 percent, he said.
Meanwhile, the housing tax for owners of only one residential property would be reduced from 1.2 percent to 1 percent, he said.
Owners of more than three residential properties can have the additional tax rates cut in half if they rent out the properties, he said.
The draft amendments were designed to slow the rise of property values and to put more homes on the market, he said.
The housing price-to-income ratio is nine, while the reasonable range is three to five, he said.
“A progressive property tax would reinvigorate the housing market,” Huang said, adding that social housing and subsidies for renters initiatives are not enough.
Social Housing Advocacy Consortium chairman Peng Yang-kae (彭揚凱) said that a progressive property tax would encourage owners of multiple houses to put some back on the market.
The amendments would only affect owners of four or more residential properties, or 5 percent of the population, he said.
The party would also promote legislation requiring the disclosure of properties’ selling prices to improve transparency in the housing market, NPP think tank deputy chief executive officer Peng Sheng-shao (彭盛韶) said.
Both will be promoted as the party’s priority bills in the new legislative session beginning today, Peng said.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard