Oldest part of population give the most gifts
By Hsu Yi-ping and Fion Khan / Staff reporter, with staff writer
One out of every 3.81 gift tax cases in Taiwan last year involved donors aged 80 or older, with older Taiwanese transferring a combined NT$86.9 billion (US$2.73 billion) in assets, accounting for more than one-third of the nation’s total gifted assets, Ministry of Finance data showed.
About 23,000 taxable gift cases nationwide were recorded last year, of which 6,026 involved donors aged 80 or above, accounting for 26.24 percent of the total, ministry data showed.
Those aged 75 to 79 accounted for 3,189 cases worth NT$46.8 billion; donors aged 70 to 74 recorded 3,955 cases worth NT$40.3 billion; and people aged 65 to 69 filed 3,193 cases, with gifted assets totaling NT$33.4 billion, the data showed.
Commercial and residential buildings are pictured in Taipei in an undated photograph.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Total gifted assets reached NT$260.6 billion last year, down slightly from NT$281 billion in 2024, they showed.
The figures indicate that retirees are the demographic most likely to transfer assets through gifting.
Life expectancy in Taiwan rose to 81.27 years last year, an increase of 0.5 years from a year earlier, Ministry of the Interior data showed.
Sinyi Realty Inc research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾敬德) said longer life expectancy appears to have extended the period during which elderly people tend to distribute assets to family members.
This longevity could be the reason that people aged 80 or older accounted for the largest number of gift filings, he said.
The annual gift tax exemption is capped at NT$2.44 million per person, meaning that donors might give assets to any number of recipients without incurring a gift tax, provided the cumulative value does not exceed the exemption threshold, he added.
As Taiwan becomes a super-aged society, the number of taxable estate cases and the value of taxable estates reached a nine-year high last year, finance ministry data showed.
In other developments, separate data showed that more than 91,300 people renounced their inheritance rights last year, the second-highest figure in the past nine years.
The number of inheritance renunciations exceeded 90,000 annually for three consecutive years from 2023 to last year, with 2023 hitting a record high with almost 92,300 cases, they showed.
From 2017 to last year, women consistently accounted for more inheritance renunciations than men.
In 2017, women made up about 56.3 percent of all inheritance renunciations, compared with 43.7 percent for men, a gap of 12.6 percentage points — the widest disparity during the nine-year period.
However, the gender gap in inheritance waivers narrowed significantly between 2022 and last year, shrinking to less than 10 percentage points in 2022, 2024 and last year, with last year recording the narrowest gap at 9.2 percentage points.
Colliers International owner-occupier services director Huang Shu-wei (黃舒衛) said the most common reason for renouncing an inheritance is that the dead person’s debts exceed the value of their assets.
By formally renouncing inheritance rights, heirs can sever liability for outstanding debts, he said.
Another common scenario involves heirs carrying substantial personal debts, he said.
As accepting an inheritance could expose the assets to creditors and trigger compulsory enforcement proceedings, renouncing the inheritance allows assets to pass directly to siblings or other eligible heirs under the law, preventing them from being claimed by outside creditors, he said.
Traditional views could play a role in some regions, where sons are expected to inherit land and property while daughters receive cash, contributing to a higher rate of inheritance renunciation among women, Tseng said.
The Ministry of the Interior estimated that the total value of unclaimed inherited land reached NT$99.2 billion last year, based on officially assessed land values.
More than 72,000 land parcels covering about 3,400 hectares remained without completed inheritance registration last year, the ministry said.
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