The Control Yuan yesterday released the balance sheets for the political donations and campaigns of political parties last year, with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) receiving the most contributions.
According to the Control Yuan report, the KMT received NT$382.78 million (US$12.06 million) in political donations last year, NT$244 million of which was made by corporations and businesses, NT$133 million by individuals and about NT$4 million by civic organizations.
Over the past year, the party spent NT$180 million on campaign activities and NT$87 million subsidizing campaigns for its candidates. The KMT’s final balance stood at about NT$67 million, the report said.
The report showed that most of the NT$218.65 million received by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) last year came from individuals — a total NT$158.17 million — followed by NT$41 million in contributions from corporations and businesses and NT$2.34 million from civic groups.
The largest expense for the DPP was personnel costs, which amounted to NT$81 million, the report showed, with campaign subsidization costing about NT$40 million and campaign events costing NT$31 million.
According to the report, the DPP’s final balance stood at about NT$22 million.
As for the smaller parties, the People First Party received NT$8.83 million in political contributions and had a total expenditure of NT$6.38 million. The New Party received NT$5.97 million and spent NT$5.54 million.
The Taiwan Solidarity Union, which received NT$14.4 million in donations last year, spent NT$15.7 million and ended up with a deficit of about NT$1.33 million, the report said.
Other parties that were in the red were the People Largest Party, which received NT$1.23 million in donations and spent NT$1.32 million, and the Green Party Taiwan, which had donations of NT$1.22 million and total expenditure of NT$1.95 million.
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