A plan by the legislature to negotiate a disputed draft act on innovative industries failed to pass yesterday after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus skipped the meeting.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) called off a scheduled cross-party negotiation session shortly after the meeting began yesterday morning.
The cancellation came after DPP caucus whip Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) showed up, but did not stay to negotiate the Cabinet’s proposal on promoting innovative industries (產業創新條例) with his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU) counterparts.
Legislators reached a consensus at the end of the last legislative session to prioritize the proposal in the current session, but did not agree to put the bill to a third reading.
The Executive Yuan removed a controversial article from the proposal that would allow multinational corporations establishing corporate headquarters in Taiwan and meeting certain requirements to be taxed a flat business income tax of 15 percent — 5 percent lower than the recently adopted rate for businesses.
As the article would have applied to some Fortune 500 companies, including local firms Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, Acer Inc, Asustek Computer and Quanta Computer, the DPP and tax reform activists criticized it as overly benefiting large corporations.
KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) told reporters after the session that the caucus supported the proposal and questioned why the DPP failed to attend the session.
DPP caucus secretary-general Chen Ying (陳瑩) said members of the caucus had prior engagements, adding that the party was not trying to boycott the negotiation.
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