The Taipei City Government yesterday cried foul over its outstanding national health insurance subsidy debts, saying it was unfair for the capital to shoulder NT$38 billion (US$1.2 billion) in payments for non-residents.
The problem stems from President Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) tenure as Taipei mayor, when the city government decided not to pay the fees because it disagreed with the way the bureau calculated the size of the city's workforce.
Local governments are required by law to pay one-third of the costs of medical treatment incurred in the previous year by residents in their jurisdiction. Taipei has insisted that a lack of funds has prevented it from paying the debts.
Past lawsuits resulted in a Supreme Administrative Court ruling against Taipei City Government, which was told to repay the debt it accrued between 1999 and 2002.
Addressing the matter of back payments, Premier Liu Chao-hsiuan (劉兆玄) has instructed the Department of Health to ask the city government to propose plots of land or other assets equal in value to those plots that had been confiscated from the local government as security against the unpaid debt, so that they could be returned to the local government to be developed.
Taipei City Finance Department head Chiu Da-chan (邱大展) yesterday said the city had found 20 plots of land with an estimated market value of NT$800 million (US$24.4 million), hoping to exchange them with the 31 lots seized by the central government.
Su Ying-kuei (蘇盈貴), commissioner of Taipei City's Labor Department, yesterday said that it was unfair to ask the city to cover people whose household registrations were not in the city.
While the city has a workforce of about 1.4 million, the city government pays the health insurance subsidy for 3.6 million people, he said.
Su criticized the central government for reducing the tax redistribution fund to local governments since July 1999 and thus diminishing the city treasury by NT$109.6 billion so far.
Taking business tax as an example, Su said lowering the business tax from 5 percent to 2 percent has taken NT$6 billion each year from city government coffers.
Su said it was “stupid” for the central government to confiscate land from the local government.
He said the central government's handling of the matter had “harmed” the local government.
“Isn't this an indication that they are very incompetent?” he asked.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
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