The nation’s uneven distribution of wealth is one of the most controversial issues of the day. More crucial is the public’s growing sense of relative deprivation caused by the President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration’s imbalanced, pro-big-business and pro-China policies.
This has prompted calls for reforms to the tax system to balance wealth distribution and help narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.
However, the legislature’s decision last week to axe the capital gains tax on securities transactions is yet another setback for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) since it decided to resume the tax more than three years ago.
It is also a loss for the nation as a whole in its efforts to pursue tax justice and social fairness.
It appears that the KMT government has yielded to demands to scrap the tax amid the prolonged depression in the stock market, but the issue might come back to haunt the government — no matter which political party comes to power after January’s presidential and legislative elections — if the economy improves.
Is the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ready to make tax reforms if it is returned to power next year?
Can DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) win votes without promoting tax reforms that would anger investors?
If public support of the Sunflower movement last year was partly a reflection of people’s disappointment with the Ma government’s response to growing social and economic inequality — which led to the KMT’s landslide loss in the nine-in-one elections last year — why have the public not stood up this time to challenge legislators over terminating the tax on capital gains?
In some societies people have restricted the rich from using their money and connections to earn larger returns, while in other societies people have implemented various tax systems to decelerate the accumulation of wealth and achieve greater equity in income redistribution.
Law enforcement agencies play a key role in these societies by taking action based on the principles of fairness and justice, facilitating upward mobility for the poor.
Taiwan needs a deeper debate on growing income inequality ahead of the presidential election.
The public has the right to know the policy proposals of presidential candidates on introducing tax reforms to improve income distribution. People opposing the capital gains tax have to better understand what the outcomes of inequality are, including potential imbalances and resource misapplications, as well as favoritism for the rich, while people advocating the tax have to know better what the potential side effects are for the local bourse.
The subject has to become an integral part of the nation’s democratic discourse and debated in a way that it has not been thus far.
Presidential candidates from major political parities have shown that they support the nation’s vibrant democracy and robust economy, but they must now demonstrate the same level of commitment to wealth distribution and social mobility.
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