Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (
Chang's comments came one day after the mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung and the Taipei County commissioner protested the Executive Yuan's decision for the three areas to share 43 percent of the centrally allotted tax revenues. Taipei and Kaohsiung's share of the revenue has significantly dropped as a result of the decision.
Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) has acknowledged that the county would get a lot more money from the central government now that it is the third administrative area under the direct jurisdiction of the Cabinet -- but said the money would not be enough to help the county to balance next year's budget.
Chou said the Cabinet should not have used this year's tax revenue -- NT$150 billion (US$4.54 billion) -- as the basis for drawing up next year's budget given that finance officials have said centrally allotted tax revenues next year would be NT$250 billion.
Chang blamed the dispute on the legislature's passage of an amendment in May to the Law on Local Government Systems (地方制度法), allowing Taipei County to become a "quasi-special municipality," saying that lawmakers failed to amend the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) to reapportion the division of tax revenues.
That law says the special municipalities of Taipei and Kaohsiung are entitled to 43 percent of the centrally allotted tax revenues.
Chang said Taichung, Tainan and other cities and counties have voiced a strong desire to upgrade their status to obtain a larger share of centrally allotted tax revenues.
Chang said, however, that no individual or administrative districts should try to "take more than their fair share."
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods