NEWS
TAIWAN TO HALVE TARIFF RATE ON CHAMPAGNES TO WOO FRANCE
By Siulan Law Mathews DipWSET
26-4-2022
Credit: Thomas Tucker/Unsplash
Taiwan's legislature today passed a bill to halve the import tariff on Champagnes from the current 20 percent to 10 percent.
The tariff reduction will only apply on Champagnes but not other sparkling wines, including other French sparkling styles despite that pleasing France is the apparent reason for the cut.
The legislators who proposed the bill argued that France will assume rotating presidency of the European Union in 2022, a tariff reduction on Champagnes can help deepen economic and trade exchanges between Taiwan and France, and hopefully that with EU.
Taiwan applies a 10 percent tariff rate for all imported wines except for the sparkling style which has a much higher 20 percent rate. It is not sure why Taiwan adopted such a policy in the first place.
The Taiwan legislators who supported the bill believed that cutting Champagnes' tariffs to 10 percent will help bring the tax closer to the level of other Asian countries, but none seemed to have explain why the cut should only apply to Champagnes but not other sparkling wines including those from France.
As a comparison, Hong Kong has a zero tariff on all imported wines including Champagnes, the Philippines has a 5 percent tariff rate, Singapore, Japan and even mainland China all have a lower than 20 percent tariff rate.
Taiwan's Ministry of Finance estimated that the tariff cut would bring a net loss of NTD44.94 million (USD1.53m) in tax income each year to the coffer.
(the writer can be contacted at: info@thewinechronicle.com)
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