The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) plans to pass six pieces of legislation, including a draft foreign repatriation management and application act, and approve the nomination of four grand justice candidates in a proposed provisional legislative session, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Saturday.
The regular legislative session ended on Friday and the DPP caucus aims to hold a provisional legislative session later this month.
The caucus hopes to pass proposed amendments to the Act for Industrial Innovation (產業創新條例), the Factory Management Act (工廠管理輔導法), the Income Tax Act (所得稅法) and the Customs Import Tariff Act (海關進口稅則), the source said.
Photo: Lin Liang-sheng, Taipei Times
Proposed amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) are expected to be the only item of discussion that is political in nature, they said.
DPP and opposition lawmakers are at loggerheads over whether people should be required to present their national ID cards when signing a referendum petition.
DPP Legislator Chiang Chieh-an’s (蔣絜安) proposal, which is nearly identical to the Executive Yuan’s version, has advanced to a second reading, the source said, adding that both versions include the ID requirement to prevent the names of deceased people from being used in petitions.
The draft foreign repatriation act aims to mitigate risks facing China-based Taiwanese firms that plan to transfer capital back home amid an ongoing trade dispute between the US and China, they said.
According to the Executive Yuan’s version, companies that repatriate their earnings in the first year of the act’s promulgation would be given a preferential tax rate equivalent to 8 percent of the repatriated amount, while those that do so in the second year would be taxed 10 percent of the repatriated amount, the source said.
Companies that invest the repatriated money in certain industries would be eligible to reclaim half of the tax they paid, they said, citing the draft act.
Proposed amendments to the Act for Industrial Innovation seek to extend by 10 years the duration of tax benefits for firms that invest in 5G network technologies or smart machinery.
Proposed amendments to the import tariff act would lower tariffs on a dozen Japanese imports, including sake.
Draft amendments to the Income Tax Act seek to introduce a tax deduction of NT$120,000 per person for people who use long-term or home care services.
However, people in the high-income bracket would not be eligible for the deduction.
Executive Yuan spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka said that the Executive Yuan would respect the Legislative Yuan’s decision on which bills to review, expressing the hope that bills that would benefit the economy, such as the repatriation bill, would be passed in a provisional session.
Lawmakers are also expected to approve the nomination of Judicial Yuan Secretary-General Lu Tai-lang (呂太郎) and three others as grand justices, the source said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods