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Legislature fails to pass 'sunshine bills'

The legislature ended its first session and went into summer recess on Friday, having failed to pass many of the much-anticipated “sunshine bills” aimed at eliminating official corruption and establishing clean politics.

The legislature on Friday voted down an amendment to the Political Contribution Act (政治獻金法) proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) designed to impose a cap on the amount of electoral funds a candidate can receive from party assets.

The proposal, which suggested a cap of NT$25 million (US$824,000) for presidential and vice presidential candidates and a cap of NT$1 million for legislative candidates, failed to pass the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-dominated legislature.

This marked another DPP failure on matters pertaining to ensuring a level-playing field, following previous efforts to write a law and hold a referendum to demand that the KMT return the huge assets it illegally expropriated from the public during authoritarian rule.

Legislators were in agreement, however, on punishing recipients of political contributions from businesses in the red since April 2, 1994, when the act was implemented and the date when the article came into effect.

The original article stipulated a fine for recipients who received contributions from loss-making businesses equal to the amount and the confiscation of the donation.

Politicians, however, will still be barred from receiving such contributions after the amendment comes into force and will be fined between NT$200,000 and NT$1 million if they receive donations from businesses without determining whether they are making losses beforehand.

Loss-making businesses will be fined twice the amount of the contributions they give to politicians.

The legislature passed an amendment to the Children and Youth Welfare Law (兒童及青少年福利法) expanding the coverage of government healthcare subsidies from middle-to-low income households with children under three years of age to include households with youth under 18.

The Ministry of the Interior said that 130,000 households would be covered under the amendment, which would take effect on Jan. 1.

An amendment to the Tax Collection Act (稅捐稽徵法) loosening the regulations restricting taxpayers with tax debts from going abroad was also passed.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
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