In
the end of the article “The eurozone crisis” we mentioned Taiwanese government
has conducted the luxury tax act to address the issue of booming house price. In
this article we will talk about the luxury tax act in Taiwan.
在” The eurozone crisis”的文末，我們提及臺灣政府已經執行奢侈稅以處理房價飛漲的議題。本文中我們就來談談臺灣的奢侈稅法案。
A
luxury tax is a tax on luxury goods: products not considered essential. In
order to narrow the widening gap in wealth and curbing real estate speculation,
Taiwan's Ministry of Finance (MOF) proposed the “Statute for Special Commodity
and Service Tax” act that focused on luxury goods in 2011. Luxury goods will be
taxed 10%, and property not lived in by the owner and sold within 2 years of
purchase will face a 10-15% tax. As Taiwanese government has tried to curb
rampant speculative property transactions and the widening gap in wealth in past decade, BBC News called this act as “an unusual move”.
奢侈稅是對奢侈品課徵的稅：也就是對非必需品的商品而言。為了縮小日益嚴重的貧富差距與遏止房地產投機，臺灣的財政部於2011年針對奢侈品提出「特種貨物及勞務稅」一案。奢侈品將會被課10%的稅、而不動產所有權人銷售持有期間在2年以內者，會面臨10-15%的稅。過去10年間，臺灣政府試圖遏制猖狂的房地產投機交易、以及縮小日益嚴重的貧富差距，英國BBC新聞稱此奢侈稅一案為「一個不尋常的舉動」。
Taiwanese
government claimed it would "only impact around 5% of the population at
the top of the consumer pyramid.” By conducting this act, the government also
believed it could add 15 billion (TWD) to the treasury, funds that would be
allocated to social welfare programs.
臺灣政府聲稱奢侈稅「僅會影響消費金字塔頂端，約5%的族群。」政府也相信藉由此法案的執行，能為國庫增加15億新臺幣的稅收，而這筆收入將用於社會福利計畫上。
For
the perspective from the society, property agents and sectors opposed this
luxury tax act. However most Taiwanese embraced this act and had confident that
it would help release their living stress, especially in the metropolitan area.
從社會的觀點來看，房地產仲介與公司反對此奢侈稅法案。然而多數的臺灣人支持此法案、並有信心這能舒緩他們的生活壓力，尤其是都會地區。
Addition
to the problem of property speculation, the living wage is another serious
problem that the Taiwanese society faces nowadays. Living wage is the minimum
income that a workforce earned that is necessary to meet his/her basic needs in
a period of time or for a lifetime. However, for workforce in Taiwan, especially
in the capital Taipei, their wage has been underestimated. It is something like
a fairy tale to own a property in metropolitan area. And it results in the
phenomena of brain drain - another problem that Taiwanese society confronts inevitably.
除了房地產投機的問題，生活薪資也是臺灣社會今日面臨的另一個嚴重的問題。生活薪資是勞動者所獲取能滿足一段時間或其一生的基本需要之最小報酬。然而，對於臺灣的勞動者而言，尤其是在首都臺北，他們的薪資被低估了。想要在都會地區擁有一件房地產堪謂天方夜譚。而這又導致了人才外流的現象－這是臺灣社會所面臨的另一個無可避免的問題。
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