The Yilan County Government has fired the first shot by imposing land taxes of up to five times the norm on underutilized lots in the county’s industrial parks to support the Cabinet’s effort to ease the land shortage for industrial properties.
Acting Yilan County Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德) on Thursday said he is taking an inventory of underutilized plots of land under his jurisdiction and will levy additional land taxes on vacant plots at rates two to five times the regular rates to promote land development.
Chen’s move came after the Cabinet made plans on Nov. 6 to free up to 1,422 hectares of underutilized land for industrial use in the next four years as part of an effort to encourage investment in Taiwan.
Business trade groups have said that shortages of land, water, electricity, unskilled workers and talented labor have hindered private investment and GDP growth as a whole.
There are many idle or underused plots of land in Yilan, Chen said, adding that he is first going to target Lize Industrial Park (利澤工業區) and Longte Industrial Park (龍德工業區).
Only 45.15 percent of Lize Industrial Park’s 329.05 hectares have been put to use since a redevelopment bid in 1996, whereas the 235 hectares of Longte Industrial Park have had a utilization rate of 97.4 percent since 1980, government data showed.
The Yilan County Government in 2015 granted the two parks a three-year grace period and asked owners to speed up development and construction or face stiff fines. The grace period is due to expire in March next year.
The two parks are now subjected to vacant land levies equivalent to five times their regular land tax rates until the owners make amends, Chen said, adding that Yilan is the first and only local government to take action to advance the Cabinet’s policy.
China Wire & Cable Co Ltd (中華電信電纜) owns most of the underused plots of land in the area after purchasing 19.24 hectares of land in 1997, but has resold most of it in recent years, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday.
The company has urged policymakers to put off levying vacant land taxes, saying that it has yet to develop the plots of land because big trucks are not allowed to go through the Hsuehshan Tunnel (雪山隧道), a predicament which has steeply increased estimates for loading and transportation costs.
China Wire & Cable said it is seeking a solution, but needs extra time, the newspaper reported.
The Executive Yuan last month threatened to auction off idle plots of land to demonstrate that it is serious about making Taiwan more business-friendly, and earlier this month the Legislative Yuan passed amendments to the Act for Industrial Innovation (產業創新條例), setting fines levied against owners of disused industrial park land at 10 percent of the assessed value.
However, the government said it would not target state-run Taiwan Sugar Corp (台糖), which owns up to 50,000 hectares, about half of which is designated as farmland.
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