The National Women’s League still needs to provide an account of how it used proceeds from a “military benefits tax,” the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday.
“It needs to produce an account of how the military benefits tax proceeds were used, along with declaring any relationship with league assets,” Civil Affairs Department director Lin Ching-chi (林清淇) said.
The tax on imported goods from 1955 to 1989, described by the league as a kind of “patriotic donation,” provided most of its early funding, drawing criticism that the league profited from ties to the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) wife Soong Mayling (宋美齡) founded the league and headed it for decades.
Following repeated requests, the league on Friday filed a detailed account of its budget, income and assets, while at the same time announcing plans to donate nearly NT$28 billion (US$909 million) of its NT$38.1 billion in outstanding assets to government agencies and charities.
“It should have been providing reports every year and although it has met requirements for this year, it is still unclear what happened to proceeds from the military benefits tax over the years,” Lin said. “The issue is the relationship between its current capital and tax proceeds. If the money is from tax gains, it needs to return it all to the nation.”
“What is important is opening up league finances and sourcing all of its current assets,” New Power Party Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said. “It should not use promises of donations as a smokescreen to obscure the core issue.”
NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: An official said that Guan Guan’s comments had gone beyond the threshold of free speech, as she advocated for the destruction of the ROC China-born media influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China content that threatens national security, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Guan Guan has said many controversial things in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” while expressing hope for expedited “reunification.” The agency received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification last year. After investigating, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and account for her actions. Guan Guan appeared as required,
A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
PAPERS, PLEASE: The gang exploited the high value of the passports, selling them at inflated prices to Chinese buyers, who would treat them as ‘invisibility cloaks’ The Yilan District Court has handed four members of a syndicate prison terms ranging from one year and two months to two years and two months for their involvement in a scheme to purchase Taiwanese passports and resell them abroad at a massive markup. A Chinese human smuggling syndicate purchased Taiwanese passports through local criminal networks, exploiting the passports’ visa-free travel privileges to turn a profit of more than 20 times the original price, the court said. Such criminal organizations enable people to impersonate Taiwanese when entering and exiting Taiwan and other countries, undermining social order and the credibility of the nation’s
‘SALAMI-SLICING’: Beijing’s ‘gray zone’ tactics around the Pratas Islands have been slowly intensifying, with the PLA testing Taiwan’s responses and limits, an expert said The Ministry of National Defense yesterday condemned an intrusion by a Chinese drone into the airspace of the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) as a serious disruption of regional peace. The ministry said it detected the Chinese surveillance and reconnaissance drone entering the southwestern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone early yesterday, and it approached the Pratas Islands at 5:41am. The ministry said it immediately notified the garrison stationed in the area to enhance aerial surveillance and alert levels, and the drone was detected in the islands’ territorial airspace at 5:44am, maintaining an altitude outside the effective range of air-defense weaponry. Following
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