The General Chamber of Commerce (商業總會) in a white paper yesterday urged the government to give top priority to stabilizing ranking officials and keeping policies consistent, as frequent changes make it more difficult to draw up business development plans.
“Policy consistency should be at the top of the government’s agenda no matter who is in power, or the private sector will have to pay heavy costs to stay legally compliant,” the chamber’s annual paper said.
Scores of ministers have stepped down under the current administration, for moral, health, career or other reasons, leaving the industry directionless in planning business strategies, as succeeding officials pursued different policies, the paper said.
Ministers of finance, labor affairs, economic affairs, health and welfare, the financial supervisory commission, national defense and the interior all quit due to pressure amid controversy, instead of Cabinet reshuffles.
“The government has shown a tendency to avoid making major policies for fear of controversy, and has therefore abandoned policies it has touted as important and necessary for the nation,” the chamber’s chairman Lai Cheng-i (賴正鎰) said, citing the service trade agreement with China.
However, policymakers have adopted roughly made policies such as capital gains taxes on stock investments to pander to minority groups, only to virtually axe the levy later, Lai said.
Furthermore, government officials by and large fail to demonstrate prowess in terms of leadership, management and damage control, as seen in recurring food safety scandals, the paper said.
While food makers themselves are to blame, the government is slow and lax in reining in the fallout from these scandals, Lai said.
“Repeated tainted cooking oil scandals involving large firms have seriously harmed Taiwan’s reputation as ‘the paradise of delicacies,’” Lai said, adding that the government has tried hard to boost tourism, in a bid to cut the nation’s dependence on electronics exports.
Lai warned against government plans to hike taxes on capital gains from property transactions, saying the government promised not to use real-price registration data for tax purposes, but would be doing exactly that if it introduces the tax change.
The planned tax would estrange large amounts of home owners in the same way the capital gains tax did to stock investors, as it would subject home sellers to millions in tax payments once they cash in on houses bought several years ago, Lai said.
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