The pan-purple alliance, a private group dedicated to promoting fair and just social welfare services and speaking for the underprivileged, unveiled a list of lawmakers yesterday who it claims support tax cuts for the rich.
Chien Hsi-chieh, convener of the alliance, unveiled the list at a news conference yesterday that was dubbed "Beware! Look Who Is Undermining Our National Finances."
Over the past 10 years, Chien said, the nation's financial status has continued to worsen, with the ratio of tax revenues to GDP declining from 18.6 percent to 12.3 percent. As tax revenues have decreased by NT$700 billion over the past decade, Chien said, the government has had to sell land holdings and stocks, as well as float state bonds, to make ends meet.
Ignoring the government's financial straits, the Legislative Yuan has passed revisions to three major bills that "would allow business corporations and wealthy families to evade taxes with legal protection," Chien said.
The three bills refer to packages of revisions to the statute on promoting industrial upgrading, the statute on land value increment tax and the inheritance and gift tax law.
In the run-up to the Dec. 11 legislative elections, Chien said, candidates of different political stripes are gearing up to canvass votes. However, he said, few candidates have paid attention to issues related to people's livelihoods, such as government finances and welfare services for the underprivileged.
Chien said the pan-purple alliance has consequently decided to unveil the list of legislators who initiated the above-mentioned three bills and are seeking re-election in the upcoming vote.
The lawmakers come from across the political spectrum, Chien said, adding that the move should serve as a warning to those legislators.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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