The only solution to the government's budget deficit is to reform the tax structure, Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
The tax reform plan will cover the establishment of a minimum-tax scheme and a "green tax," as well as making adjustments to other forms of taxation such as income tax, business tax and inheritance tax. The two main issues concerning the proposed tax structure are equity and economic growth, Lin said.
The goal of taxation is to evenly redistribute wealth among the public, Lin said.
The government has been operating on a budget deficit since 1991, with the figure amounting to NT$337.3 billion (US$10.5 billion) this year, according to the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).
The exception was in 1998, when the government saw a surplus after the release of state-owned stocks into the market, which created revenue accounting for 23.8 percent of that year's GDP, while expenditures amounted to 23 percent, Lin said.
So far, the government's debt has reached a total of NT$3.99 trillion, DGBAS said.
Increasing tax rates to solve the deficit problem is no longer enough; the fundamental solution is to overhaul the current taxation structure, Lin said.
The budget deficit is the result of the government creating too many business incentive plans and tax premiums for certain industries, as well as loopholes in tax laws, according to Chen Tin-an (
A new tax structure is needed to support the country's future development, Chen said.
The minimum-tax scheme is a transitional plan aimed at promoting sustainable tax redistribution among the public, said Ho Chih-chin (何志欽), dean of the economics department at National Taiwan University.
The influence of changes in income-tax rates on the nation's tax revenue is small, while a value-added tax would have a more significant effect, Lin said.
In regard to the conception that inheritance tax is "stealing from the poor to aid the rich," Lin said that some of the policies are too loose, and they should be tightened.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and last year announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January next year. However, on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector would do in the
RSS