Female lawmakers yesterday lined up to blast the interior ministry for its plan to levy tax on unmarried citizens aged 40 and older as part of an attempt to curb the declining birthrate.
The outcry prompted Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) to explain that the proposal, floated by a demographic scholar, has been rejected by the panel studying measures to encourage people to have more children.
KMT Legislator Yang Chiung-ying (
"Is the interior ministry so stupid as to conceive such a measure, or what?" she said before the interpellation session.
"Under the proposal, Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Council of Labor Affairs Chairwoman Chen Chu (陳菊), and Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) would all have to pay extra taxes."
Yang, 38 and single, urged the three and other unmarried officials to lodge a strong protest against the measure.
A ministry task force is drawing plans to encourage marriage and more childbirths, at a time when the nation's birthrate has hit a record low of 1.16, representing 260,000 children born last year. The figure is expected to drop further this year as only 180,000 children were born as of the end of September, official statistics show.
Chen Kuan-cheng (陳寬政), a research fellow at Academia Sinica, has suggested imposing a tax on single citizens aged 40 and older who have no hereditary diseases. The revenue could then be used to award people who have children and to sponsor child-care programs, he said.
PFP Legislator Li Yong-ping (
The lawmaker, who has said she has ovarian dysfunction, said that the interior ministry might as well turn itself into a matchmaking club in a bid to boost the marriage rate.
"I want to get married and have children," Li said. "I even thought of seeking help from surrogate mothers but had to abandon the idea because children born that way are considered illegitimate."
Before authorities launched family planning programs to slow down population growth, a Taiwanese woman gave birth to an average of six children during the 1940s and 1950s. That number declined to two in 1984. The trend has worried demographic officials who predict a negative growth in childbirth by 2027.
Wang Yu-ting (
"With an aging population, the ministry should focus its attention on planning nursing homes and similar facilities rather than tax reform," she said.
Presently, there are on average eight adults to support every senior citizen, a ratio that will drop to 3:1 in 50 years' time, the lawmaker warned citing government data.
To calm the rage Yu said the ministry has no intention of imposing the "singles' tax."
"The disputed tax was purely a scholarly opinion," Yu told the legislature. "It has been rejected by the ministry." The task force also scrapped an earlier plan to award couples NT$30,000 for every child after two, on grounds the measure would add strain to cash-strapped state coffers.
Also See Story:
Ministry suggests NT$36,000 hike in child tax exemption
RSS