The Alliance for Fair Tax Reform (AFTR) yesterday called on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus to refrain from passing tax cuts that it said would only benefit large corporations and could cost the national treasury more than NT$40 billion (US$1.2 billion) in annual tax revenues.
The group was referring to the KMT caucus’ support for an industrial innovation bill. The bill has been listed by the KMT as its priority in the remaining two days of this legislative session.
The draft proposes that multinational corporations be granted tax cuts for research and development, personnel training and setting up their headquarters in Taiwan.
While the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — which has voiced opposition to the bill — has been successful in stalling the bill’s progress during cross-party negotiations, the bill could still pass if the KMT decides to terminate the negotiations and put it to a vote.
“In the name of promoting economic development, the government has given large tax cuts to large corporations,” AFTR chairman Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋) told a press conference at the legislature yesterday. “The government promises that these measures will create economic prosperity and more tax income, but we only see more government debt, an unfair tax system and an increasing gap between rich and poor.”
While the government estimates that the Act for Promotion of Industrial Upgrading (促進產業升級條例) — which expired last year — would bring in more than NT$148 billion in extra revenue for the national treasury, Wang said a total of NT$180 billion had been lost in the past two years because of different tax break programs.
“It looks like the Act for Promotion of Industrial Upgrading has expired, but the new bill is going to take over and large corporations are still going to enjoy just as many tax breaks,” AFTR spokesman Chien Hsi-chieh (簡錫土皆) said, adding that the new bill could cost the national treasury more than NT$40 billion in tax revenue losses per year.
“It’s fine if the KMT wants to support the new tax cut bill, but instead of voting anonymously, all lawmakers should put their names to the bill when they vote,” Wang said.
The DPP said it would discuss its position on the Act for Promotion of Industrial Upgrading on Monday.
DPP Legislator Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) said that DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had expressed strong opposition to the bill, “which would benefit certain consortiums.”
Huang said the party also planned to stall an amendment to the Organic Act of the Executive Yuan (行政院組織法), which is also on the KMT’s priority list, and amendments to the University Act (大學法), Vocational School Act (專科學校法) and the Statute Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) that propose to recognize education certificates issued in China and allow Chinese students to study in Taiwan.
The legislature’s plenary session remained idle throughout the day yesterday, finally starting at 8pm when an amendment to the Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Act (土壤及地下水汙染整治法) had its second and third reading.
It was expected to finish the review later last night.
Earlier yesterday, the KMT legislative caucus whip and its DPP counterpart agreed to review some bills, but caucus whips of the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union failed to put their signatures to the paper, which resulted in the session sitting idle.
Yesterday’s agenda had been to review an amendment to Administrative Enforcement Act (行政執行法) and an amendment to the Copyright Act (著作權法).
The Administrative Enforcement Act proposes empowering government agencies to impose sanctions to target the luxurious lifestyles of people who fail to meet their financial obligations to the state.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the