The Performing Arts Alliance (
Wen Hui-wen (
PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FENG, TAIPEI TIMES
The MOF did not, however, consult the Council for Cultural Affairs (
"For a long time the authority concerned did not give a clear definition of what constituted performance art groups," Wen said. "But how come we transformed overnight into profit-making businesses and have to pay as much tax as big businesses?"
The Performing Arts Alliance asked the MOF to explain the reason why performance art groups have been classified as profit-making businesses and asked the Council for Cultural Affairs to coordinate with the MOF to work out a definition of performance art groups and defer the required registration until a reasonable definition has been agreed upon.
"As far as I know, about 85 percent of performance art groups' takings come from government subsidies or private businesses financial support. Only 15 percent of the finance comes from takings," Wen said. "And many groups have not earned a dime after the SARS outbreak," Wen said.
"The Ministry of Finance's order is just like robbery," said James Liang (
Liang said that performance art groups in Taiwan have struggled to exist with limited resources and financial aid, and it has been impossible for them to actually make money.
"The cost we pay for every performance is more than 80 percent of actual earnings. What we do is quite risky, of a kind that profit-making businesses will never do," Liang said.
"The MOF committed an astonishing blunder," said PFP Legislator Lee Yung-ping (
The MOF announced yesterday that it would suspend the requirement to register until it had thrashed out a definition of performance art groups with the Council of Cultural Affairs.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift