Taiwan Cuts Capital Gains Tax on Share Sales, Removes Threshold
June 26, 2013 Leave a comment
Taiwan Cuts Capital Gains Tax on Share Sales, Removes Threshold
Taiwan lawmakers voted to roll back provisions of a capital gains tax on stock sales of more than NT$1 billion ($33.3 million) and removed an index price threshold that depressed shares.
Tax on capital gains from transactions of more than NT$1 billion was reduced to 0.1 percent from the 2.25 percent under the original law. Lawmakers also removed a 8,500-point close threshold for the Taiex index before the tax could go into effect. Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng announced the passage of revisions in a special legislative session today.The new rules came after stock trading volume declined by as much as 30 percent in the first four months of the year, according to Credit Suisse Group AG. President Ma Ying-jeou’s administration and legislators argued over about 10 versions of the tax last year, prompting then-Finance Minister Christina Liu to step down. The Taiex lost 13 percent during the period.
“This would create motivation for local investors to enter the market, since the capital gains tax was always seen as a negative for the stocks,” said Parker Wu, a fund manager at the Agriculture Bank of Taiwan, who helps oversee the equivalent of $98 million.
Taiwanese residents invested more capital overseas in the last two quarters of 2012 from the quarter earlier, Credit Suisse analyst Christiaan Tuntono wrote in a May 20 report, citing the island’s central bank. The government’s transaction tax revenue fell by 24 percent in the first four months of the year, according to Tuntono.
Past Attempt
Before passing the levy last year, Taiwan had since 1990 exempted securities transactions from capital-gains taxes, according to the stock exchange’s website. Stocks fell for 19 consecutive days, tumbling 33 percent in a month, when the plan for the tax was first discussed in 1988, Schive Chi said last year when he was the chairman of Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp.
The Taiex index retreated 0.5 percent this year, erasing earlier gains on concern the Federal Reserve will scale back monetary stimulus as the economy recovers. The benchmark index trades at 13.2 times 12-month projected profit, the lowest since June last year, compared with the MSCI Emerging Market index’s 9.2 times, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
To contact the reporters on this story: Adela Lin in Taipei at alin95@bloomberg.net; Weiyi Lim in Singapore at wlim26@bloomberg.net
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