Many small and medium enterprises, as well as small hospitals, have said that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration is discouraging them from supporting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidates by threatening them with tax audits, DPP caucus secretary-general Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) said on Sunday.
The Ma administration is fomenting another era of political terror, Wong said, adding that a number of hospitals had asked DPP representatives to ask on their behalf about certain taxation items they felt are unreasonable.
However, those inquiries resulted in even heavier taxation, Wong said.
Some corporations even had their taxes inspected because they had donated to the DPP and the inspections continued until they stopped donating to the DPP or the party’s candidates, Wong said.
The Ma administration is cutting taxes for the rich, but the government’s tax revenue is severely lacking, so they are focusing on shops or small and medium-size enterprises that have slightly more income, Wong said, adding that she also heard other legislators in the party say company taxes were being inspected if the owner was considered close to the DPP.
Wong also said that under the Political Donations Act (政治獻金法), donors who donated to a political party had to write the name of the company.
“They audit businesspeople who support the DPP,” Wong said.
The government’s actions have caused corporations to hold back on donations to the DPP, which Wong said was a means to cut the party’s financial lifeline.
Another DPP legislator, who requested anonymity out of concern that it would be more difficult to raise funds, said that in the legislative elections in 2007, some donors who donated tens of thousands of New Taiwan dollars were later subjected to tax audits.
As a result, those donors became reluctant to donate again, making fundraising this year even harder, the source said.
In response to Wong’s allegations that the Taxation Agency was intimidating companies from donating to the DPP via audits, Deputy Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) said no such thing was happening.
“I was chief of the Taxation Agency for a decade and it doesn’t matter if it’s the DPP or the KMT [Chinese Nationalist Party] in power, it has never received instructions like that,” Chang said.
“Civil servants now have the concept of administrative neutrality and they would not inspect your taxes on grounds of political gain,” he said.
“How would Taxation Agency personnel know if the corporation is pan-green or pan-blue?” Chang asked.
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff Writer
China appears to have built mockups of a port in northeastern Taiwan and a military vessel docked there, with the aim of using them as targets to test its ballistic missiles, a retired naval officer said yesterday. Lu Li-shih (呂禮詩), a former lieutenant commander in Taiwan’s navy, wrote on Facebook that satellite images appeared to show simulated targets in a desert in China’s Xinjiang region that resemble the Suao naval base in Yilan County and a Kidd-class destroyer that usually docks there. Lu said he compared the mockup port to US naval bases in Yokosuka and Sasebo, Japan, and in Subic Bay
Police are investigating the death of a Formosan black bear discovered on Tuesday buried near an industrial road in Nantou County, with initial evidence indicating that it was shot accidentally by a hunter. The bear had been caught in wildlife traps at least five times before, three times since 2020. Codenamed No. 711, the bear received extensive media coverage last year after it was discovered trapped twice in less than two months in the Taichung mountains. After its most recent ensnarement last month, the bear was released in the Dandashan (丹大山) area in Nantou County’s Sinyi Township (信義). However, officials became concerned after the
DETERRENCE: US National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell said cross-strait affairs are on the agenda at the US-ASEAN Special Leaders’ Summit The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday thanked the Czech Senate for passing a resolution supporting Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO and other international organizations for the second consecutive year. The resolution was passed on Wednesday with 51 votes in favor, one opposed and 11 abstentions. In addition to the WHO, it also called for Taiwan’s participation in the “meetings, mechanisms and activities” of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the International Civil Aviation Organization and Interpol. In its opening, the resolution states that the Czech Republic “considers Taiwan as one of its key partners in the Indo-Pacific region,” while noting its
The majority of parents surveyed in northern Taiwan favor the suspension of all on-site classes at schools from the junior-high level and below amid a surge in domestic COVID-19 infections, parent groups said yesterday. About 84.4 percent of respondents in a survey of 2,912 parents in northern Taiwan, where the outbreak is the most serious, said they supported suspending classes, the Action Alliance on Basic Education, the Taiwan Parents Protect Women and Children Association, and the Taiwan Love Children Association said. The groups distributed questionnaires to parents in New Taipei City, Taipei, Keelung, Taoyuan and Hsinchu city and county from Saturday morning
RSS