The National Women’s League has submitted all of the financial documents requested by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), ministry officials said yesterday.
Civil Affairs Department Deputy Director Luo Rui-ching (羅瑞卿) said that the ministry had received a listing of the league’s assets and debts, completing its required filings following the submission of income and budget reports last month.
Listed assets added up to more than NT$30 billion (US$975 million), with an annual income of more than NT$300 million, Luo said, adding that the documents would be posted online within two working days.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Following the passage of Legislative Yuan resolutions demanding the opening of the league’s finances, the ministry over the past several months has repeatedly demanded that it submit the documentation.
The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee is expected to initiate an investigation into whether the league is an affiliate of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which would make it subject to seizure of its assets by the government.
While organization officials had previously remained silent in face of allegations that the league illicitly benefited from close ties to the Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) administration, league chairwoman Cecilia Koo (辜嚴倬雲), in an interview published in the Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday, denied KMT links and said that the vast majority of the league’s money should be considered donations rather than from taxes.
Chiang’s wife Soong Mayling (宋美齡) served as the league’s first chairwoman, with most of its funding coming from a so-called “military benefit tax” levied on the US dollar value of all imported goods from 1955 to 1989.
The group said that it would give away nearly NT$28 billion of NT$38 billion it said it has in capital, including NT$16 billion to the government to fund long-term care, NT$5 billion to Cheng Hsin General Hospital and NT$6 billion to social welfare organizations.
The military benefit tax was technically donations by trade associations, Luo said, adding that the league was obliged to make full disclosure of spending regardless of where the money came from.
“All groups — including the league — that receive government subsidies or private donations are subject to basic transparency requirements to allow for public supervision,” Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) said.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
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