Calculations of government pension benefits would be changed to retroactively exclude years of service in political parties and nonprofit organizations under draft legislation expected to be passed by the Legislative Yuan on Tuesday.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus has arranged final cross-caucus negotiations on the bill tomorrow.
If passed, about 400 former civil servants’ pensions and benefits would be readjusted, while prominent Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) figures, including former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) and KMT Vice Chairman Jason Hu (胡志強), would be subject to legal action if they do not pay back excess benefits to the government.
The Ministry of Civil Service said the unique pension calculation formula can be traced to 1969, when China Youth Corps employees who were transferred to government ministries were allowed to include years of service with the corps in government pension calculations under a formal directive in 1971, after several other groups were also granted the privilege.
While the directive was abolished in 1987, those who had already transferred into government ministries were allowed to continue including previous service years in pension calculations until the practice was finally abolished in 2006.
The abolition was not retroactively applied, with the current draft requiring recalculation for all beneficiaries earning monthly pensions of more than NT$25,000.
The government would also be able to demand that beneficiary’s original employers compensate the government for extra benefits paid as a result of including extra service years, with any politically appointed beneficiaries to compensate the government directly.
Beneficiaries who have died would be exempt from the retroactive application, as would their dependents. Partial benefits for dependents of the deceased would not be subject to recalculation either.
KMT caucus convener Sufin Siluko (廖國棟) yesterday said that the benefits should be handled on a case-by-case basis, because individuals’ right to include extra years of service in benefit calculations grew out of the design of the political system at the time.
The extra benefits were not illegal, and a “one size fits all” policy would be unfair, he said, adding that the KMT would push for revisions in cross-caucus negotiations.
Additional reporting by Abraham Gerber and CNA
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS