Reforms to the nation’s finances are expected to be initiated by mid-September, as government officials, industry representatives and experts reached a consensus to hold a series of meetings led by the Cabinet, Minister of Finance Christina Liu (劉憶如) said yesterday.
Liu said the Cabinet would set up a task force to discuss taxation and finance issues and decide which needs to be addressed first.
The task force’s primary role would be to prevent structural deficits in public finances from deteriorating further, while at the same time maintaining fiscal flexibility to deal with possible global economic uncertainties in the future, Liu said.
“We hope the task force can be set up in mid-March at the earliest,” Liu told reporters at a press conference. “The ministry has submitted the plan to the Cabinet for review.”
The proposed task force is expected to be comprised of about 20 members, including representatives from related government agencies, social groups and academia, Liu said, adding that Premier Sean Chen (陳冲), who will be the convener of the task force, would announce the complete list of members soon.
Liu said the task force would be in charge of setting the agenda on finance issues through a series of intensive meetings and it would distribute the issues to smaller groups for further discussion.
“For those smaller groups, we will invite more representatives, such as industrial representatives, to join the meetings to get opinions from all aspects,” Liu said.
Liu did not specify which finance or tax issues would be discussed during the task force’s first round of meetings, but emphasized that all issues that most Taiwanese care about would be included.
Meanwhile, the “ability-to-pay” principle in a taxation system toward social fairness and justice previously announced by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would be the task force’s main focus, Liu added.
However, Liu said issues that had been focused on in previous finance reform committee meetings — launched in 2001 — and the tax reform committee — launched in 2008 — but not yet executed, would be discussed again in the task force’s meetings in the near future.
“We will determine the substantial hardships in applying the issues that had been discussed before and come up with pragmatic methods to address them,” she said.
The task force’s mission would be based on the concept of execution and pragmatism, Liu said, adding that all of the meetings would be open to the public to gain a wider range of opinions.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
OPTION: Uber said it could provide higher pay for batch trips, if incentives for batching is not removed entirely, as the latter would force it to pass on the costs to consumers Uber Technologies Inc yesterday warned that proposed restrictions on batching orders and minimum wages could prompt a NT$20 delivery fee increase in Taiwan, as lower efficiency would drive up costs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Taiwan. He is on a multileg trip to the region, which includes stops in South Korea and Japan. His visit coincided the release last month of the Ministry of Labor’s draft bill on the delivery sector, which aims to safeguard delivery workers’ rights and improve their welfare. The ministry set the minimum pay for local food delivery drivers at
RSS