Kaohsiung City "City within a City" building fire on the 14th, killing 46 people and injuring 41 people. The tragedy not only highlights the economically disadvantaged or low-end population such as the elderly living alone and low-income households, living in high-risk buildings, and even "settling their lives" The elegy that is far out of reach reflects the persistent market failure of housing, as well as the problems of urban renewal for the elderly, housing rental development policy, social housing, apartment building management, land zoning control, housing justice, population policy, etc. Administrative failure.
The housing market is malfunctioning, mainly due to the large number of vacant houses, which means that the housing market is obviously oversupplied, coupled with the aging population and declining birth rate, which lead to negative population growth, and housing prices should go down, but now they remain high, and some areas continue to rise, so The income-to-house price ratio has risen, and the weak economy has become more and more unaffordable, so there is a need to rent a house. Even though the Taiwan authorities provide rent subsidies, which have been expanded from 60,000 households to 120,000 households per year, and the application qualifications for young people are relaxed, the tenants’ application is rejected because the landlord is worried about being taxed and paid, or because of the low-end social and economic status. "Unable to rent" due to discrimination and exclusion, or "unable to rent" due to ten consecutive years of rent increases, and the proportion of rent-to-income of the disadvantaged has also increased. Behind the
market failure is actually the more serious failure of the Taiwan authorities. In the face of unreasonably rising housing prices, the Taiwan authorities pay attention to it verbally but are helpless. The financial department does not levy housing tax, and the internal affairs department has never established a sound housing rental system. More than what the disadvantaged can afford, there will be such old people in the city who have no money to rent a house, and the lonely and poor can only rent illegal buildings that are not safe. Only then did it attract the attention of the Taiwan authorities, and so on, and so on, an endless vicious circle emerged.
To prevent such tragedies from happening again in cities within cities, the Taiwan authorities should amend the "Housing Law" to include "basic living standards" in the indicators of residential safety and quality in the two chapters of the housing market and equality of living rights, and require multi-housing The clan should honestly declare the use of the remaining houses, otherwise penalties will be imposed. In addition, the Regulations on the Development and Management of the Rental Housing Market (referred to as the Leasing Regulations) should be amended to establish a rental housing registration system so that the rental housing market can establish a rental market with reference value; it should also be equipped with penalties for dishonest declarations. False declarations will be punished. However, the responsibility for transparency in the black rental market should not be placed on tenants’ deduction of rent expenses or their courage to report, because tenants will encounter the risk of rent increases or failure to rent, and will never be able to break the knot in the black market of rental housing.
Secondly, the financial department and the internal affairs department are very clear that the number of multi-family households (holding more than four households) is as high as 320,000, holding 1.6 million houses, which means that 4% of the population owns 14% of the houses, and the legal person hoards houses more evenly If you have more than 25 houses, you should use the information on property registration to simultaneously promote the hoarding tax 2.0, supplemented by the supporting measures of "heavy tax on idle and light tax on renting out". It is equivalent to a higher tax rate for business houses; if it is rented out, it will be given a preferential tax rate reduction to increase the incentives for multi-family families to rent out, increase the supply in the rental market, allow more disadvantaged groups to rent houses, and reduce the tax burden. risks of.
In addition, the deduction amount listed for rent expenses under the income tax system is only 120,000 yuan (NT$, the same below) per household, which is not as good as the standard deduction amount of 240,000 yuan for those with a spouse, and the lease contract and proof of payment must be provided to the tax bureau Documents such as household registration certificates or self-occupied use cut-off certificates usually fail to pass the landlord’s hurdle, and instead the rent is raised. No wonder there are only 27,000 tenants in Taiwan out of 780,000. The lessee declares the rental expenses to check the landlord's efficiency. If the rent expenditure can be changed to a special deduction, and the deduction limit is increased to 240,000 yuan, the effect of checking the landlord's rental situation will be significantly improved, and the market will be more transparent.
In terms of social housing, Tsai Ing-wen’s commitment of 200,000 households in eight years is so far behind that it almost missed the ticket. The speed of construction, the transfer of idle public buildings into communal housing, and the promotion of housing tax 2.0 should be supported as soon as possible to release more vacant houses quickly, so as to break through the problem of "not being able to rent" for the disadvantaged.
