The Kaohsiung City Government yesterday said it would impose a property hoarding tax as it is seeking to contain speculation in the real-estate market, calling recent price increases “abnormal.”
The announcement came in support of the Ministry of Finance’s call for local governments to levy a high tax rate on people with more than one property.
Ministry officials on Tuesday discussed strategies to rein in speculation with the nation’s six special municipalities, as well as the Hsinchu city and county governments.
Photo: CNA
About 84,000 out of 1.06 million housing units in Kaohsiung are not residential property, the city government said in a statement yesterday.
The city would implement the hoarding tax based on three principles: fulfilling housing justice, keeping individual houses intact and ensuring that owners do not pass on the costs to renters, it said.
The city government has not yet decided on the tax rate, which would be subject to approval by city councilors, it said.
The ministry levies a tax of 1.5 to 3.6 percent on non-residential housing units and allows local governments to add their own taxes, capped at 30 percent.
The Taipei City Government levies a 2.4 percent hoarding tax for units held by owners with fewer than two units and 3.6 percent for those who own more than three units.
The Kaohsiung City Government said it is also stepping up efforts to build 10,500 social housing units and offering subsidies for renters to safeguard people’s fundamental right of housing.
City authorities would continue cracking down on illegal housing transactions involving nonbinding contracts.
Meanwhile, the Tainan City Government is planning to impose a hoarding tax next year.
At the meeting at the ministry, representatives from New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, and Hsinchu city and county also agreed to impose hoarding taxes.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS