A number of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers were criticized by two civic groups yesterday as being pro-corporate.
According to the Anti-Poverty Alliance and the Youth Wants To Be Rich, they have placed KMT Legislators Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池), Alex Fai (費鴻泰), Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), Alex Tsai (蔡正元) and Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) on an observation list for their pro-corporate behavior.
“These six lawmakers have sided with corporate interests on several legislative proposals, including the securities capital gains tax,” Anti-Poverty Alliance spokesman Chien Hsi-chieh told a press conference in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
“We’re now listing them on the observation list, and issuing them yellow cards as a warning. If they continue to be corporate-leaning we shall officially announce that they are ‘corporate legislators’ and put them on a blacklist,” he added.
If they are blacklisted, Chieh said, the groups would launch negative campaigns against the lawmakers in their electoral districts when they run for re-election.
The idea of taxing capital gains on stock transactions was initiated by Minister of Finance Christina Liu (劉憶如) after she assumed office on Feb. 6, to make good on a pledge by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to promote tax reform and fairness in taxation.
A similar tax had been proposed in 1988 when Liu’s mother, Shirley Kuo (郭婉容), was finance minister. However, the idea was dropped several months later in 1989 after triggering a panic on the Taiwan stock exchange.
The KMT caucus proposed on Wednesday to shelve the proposed amendments for the time being, contending that lawmakers had too many other high-priority bills to deal with.
The move led to media allegations that the Ma administration was not serious about tax reform and that certain concerned parties were lobbying lawmakers to not pass the tax.
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