Taichung News: Taichung City Government has stepped up its efforts since unveiling the 9 Arrows of Outbreak Relief! On April 6, the Local Tax Bureau (LTB) has become the first tax authority in Taiwan to launch the new "House Tax Deduction in Accordance with Unused Business Areas" relief measure. Unlike other municipalities that levy taxes per floor, hotels in Taichung City with only part of a floor open for business can apply for a reduction in house tax from 3% (business use) to 2% (non-business use). The low tax reduction requirement helps to alleviate the burden of hotel owners.
According to the LTB, after unveiling the 9 Arrows of Outbreak Relief in early March ahead of all other municipalities, various government agencies have continued the rolling revision of various relief measures. In particular, the 8th measure of tax relief and deferred payment pro-actively assist citizens to lower their land value tax, house tax, vehicle license tax, amusement tax, as well as the installment payment and deferred payment thereof. Recently, it has launched the Deferred Tax Payment 2.0 to relax the qualifications for the application of deferred tax payments or tax installment payments.
At the same time, the LTB has also selected approximately 400 hotels and 35 wedding reception restaurants in the city that can apply for lower house tax rates if parts of their floor areas are not being used. Currently, about 110 business owners have contacted the LTB to make inquiries and 40 hotels have applied to lower their tax rates, helping them roughly with NT$1.65 million in taxes.
The LTB pointed out that according to the regulations of the existing interpretive directions from the Ministry of Finance, if a hotel closes some of its floors due to a lack of business, it can apply to change its business use house tax to non-business house tax for each floor. However, many modern hotels, motels and B&Bs have adopted a new business model using buildings that are not necessarily divided according to floors; therefore, the city government has become the first municipality in Taiwan to implement the new house tax policy that is calculated based on the floor as the unit to better suit the business owners' needs.
The LTB mentioned that it was discovered during the consultation process that many business owners are not the buildings' owners, meaning that they are not the ones paying the house tax. Consequently, the LTB has designed an exclusive tax change application form for houses so that the building owners and business owners may apply together to clarify the actual usage conditions. The application form is available from LTB's website (https://www.tax.taichung.gov.tw/) in the COVID-19 Tax Payment Application Area for the public's convenience.