Issues of housing justice and steep real-estate prices have led to dissatisfaction among young voters, who are turning away from the two major parties, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) said yesterday, blaming unreasonably high housing taxes collected by local governments.
“The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government has taken up measures to bring down property prices and has promoted fairness and housing justice for years, but housing prices in cities are still climbing,” TSU Chairman Liu Yi-te (劉一德) told a news conference at the party’s office in Taipei.
Liu said these measures include heavy fines and other punishments to combat property speculation by investors, as well as a registration requirement for the actual price of a transaction to prevent the recording of inflated prices and deter owners and agents from taking advantage of the opaque process, he said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
In recent years, one main reason for the surging prices is rezoning by local governments, opening plots for farming and industrial use, and for real-estate development, as the land can increase in assessed value by 10 times or more overnight, while local governments make huge financial gains by collecting the Land Value Increment Tax, which could be as much as 10 to 20 percent, Liu said.
This has been a major source of tax revenue for Taiwan’s six special municipalities in recent years and is the main driver of high real-estate prices, he said.
High property prices cause the younger generation to choose not to marry or raise a family, creating a declining birthrate, resulting in sectors of “dissatisfied, frustrated” young voters who are turning against the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), he said.
To drive down prices and enact fairer policies, former TSU legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) provided several recommendations, including for the government to build more social housing and subsidize housing for younger people
On taxes from land rezoning, TSU legislator-at-large candidate Chang Teng-kai (張登凱) said that 30 percent of these tax revenues should be allocated specifically toward achieving housing justice, such as the provision of financial assistance to younger people for purchasing or renting a home, and housing subsidies for working-class people and senior citizens.
Chang said that taxes collected by local governments should be put into a dedicated “public housing assistance and saving fund” to help younger generations, laborers and senior citizens in subsidizing their rent or first-time home, or go into building social housing units.
TSU social movement department head Ou Yang Jui-lien (歐陽瑞蓮) said that the government could learn from Singapore in providing fair and low-cost housing for all of society.
Singapore has constructed extensive social housing for its citizens, and the monthly fees are not based on the land values of a particular city section, but rather is means tested in which working-class households would pay in accordance with their lower monthly income, while those with a higher monthly salary would pay a higher rate, she said.
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck Chiayi County at 4:37pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 36.3km southeast of Chiayi County Hall at a depth of 10.4km, CWA data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Chiayi County, Tainan and Kaohsiung on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Pingtung, Taitung, Hualien, Changhua, Nantou and Penghu counties, the data
The Supreme Court today rejected an appeal filed by former Air Force officer Shih Chun-cheng (史濬程), convicted of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) espionage, finalizing his sentence at two years and two months for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法). His other ruling, a ten-month sentence for an additional contravention, was meanwhile overturned and sent to the Taichung branch of the High Court for retrial, the Supreme Court said today. Prosecutors have been notified as Shih is considered a flight risk. Shih was recruited by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence officials after his retirement in 2008 and appointed as a supervisor
RSS