Average daily day trading transaction on the local stock market climbed to a high of NT$66.1 billion (US$2.36 billion) in March, prompting a call for the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) to rethink an extension of a tax cut on day trading transactions.
In April 2017, a tax cut on day trading transactions — from 0.003 percent to 0.0015 percent — took effect. It was to return to the previous level next year, but the commission and the Ministry of Finance have proposed extended the cut for another five years.
Experts said the policy favors intraday traders and has made the local stock market a “casino.”
Appacus Foundation president Sean Chen (陳沖), a former vice premier and former FSC chairman, on Monday said that the tax cut extension would incentivize investors to engage in day trading rather than make long-term investments.
The tax cut was implemented as a “shot in arm” for the market, as turnover was less than NT$100 billion in a single day, but turnover soared to more than NT$700 billion last month, Chen said.
If the government normalizes the tax cut, it would send a message to investors that day trading has better tax rates than long-term investing, and would make the market a “casino,” he said.
FSC Chairman Thomas Huang (黃天牧) told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei on Monday that while he respected Chen’s opinion, he did not agree with the casino analogy.
Whether reducing a single tax makes the market a “casino” needs careful consideration, Huang said, adding that further discussion about the extension were welcomed.
Day trading is just a mechanism that allows investors to make profits by buying or selling shares over short periods, and can boost the market trading volume, the commission said.
Average daily day trading transaction advanced to a record NT$66.1 billion in March, accounting for 30.34 percent of total market turnover, up from an average of NT$10.6 billion and a weighting of 9.63 percent from April 2016 to March 2017, a year before the tax cut took effect, FSC data showed.
The average daily amount of day trading transactions rose to NT$37.5 billion during the first year of the tax reduction, making up 22.34 percent of total transactions, the data showed.
The number of day traders increased to 108,000 at the end of last year, up from 44,000 a year earlier, the data showed.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS