Civic groups headed by the Housing Movement staged a protest outside the Executive Yuan complex yesterday, saying that Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) intends to delay the promised property tax reform until the presidential election in 2016 to pander to the real-estate sector.
Hundreds of protesters nearly broke in to the government building, before Department of Fiscal, Statistical and Financial Affairs head Hsiao Chia-chi (蕭家旗) emerged to listen to their grievances.
Housing Movement spokesperson Peng Yang-kai (彭揚凱) said that the Executive Yuan has not yet responded to their request to speak with Mao, despite the premier meeting Chinese Association of Real Estate Brokers head Lin Cheng-hsiung (林正雄) and Federation of Real Estate Associations head Wu Pao-tien (吳寶田), along with Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) and Minister of the Interior Chen Wei-zen (陳威仁).
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Peng said the premier was “overseeing a recipe for disaster” without taking into account the civic groups’ advice, adding that Mao even promised after the meeting further discussions with the real-estate sector over the proposed taxation system.
In the meeting, the two real-estate heads urged the government to encourage banks to offer buyers better mortgage deals with a 1 percent interest rate for home buyers, a revocation of the luxury tax and an increase in affordable housing options, said Lin Wan-ken (林旺根), house committee convener of the Consumers’ Foundation.
Lin said that the real-estate sector could sell 1.55 million apartments, given low interest rates, which would entice middle-income and low-income buyers to the market without ever being able to pay off their mortgages.
The luxury tax was originally to be levied on actual transaction prices, but is derived from capital gains on property transactions, offsetting the government’s efforts to suppress the overheated housing market, Lin added.
The government introduced the luxury tax in June 2011, imposing a 15 percent luxury tax on properties resold within one year of purchase and a 10 percent tax on those resold within two years.
Taiwan Adequate Housing Association president Huang Yi-chung (黃益中) said it would take 67 years for an average person to be able to pay off a house in Taipei and 142 years for anyone earning NT$22,000 a month, but it would have taken just 15 years for a person on an average salary in 2000 to pay off a house.
Huang accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of catering to the real-estate sector’s interests without enacting real tax reform, even after its landslide defeat in the nine-in-one elections last year.
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