The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee is seeking to slash China Youth Corps retirees’ pensions.
Owing to its affiliations with the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime during the authoritarian era, the corps’ retirees are paid civil servants’ pensions, the floor of which is set at NT$33,140 (US$1,074) monthly.
However, a pension plan the corps submitted to the committee showed that a majority of its 389 former employees are receiving both a labor pension and civil servants’ pension, the committee said.
In addition, former corps employees whose pension is less than NT$33,140 would continue to benefit from an 18 percent preferential interest rate for civil servants’ savings accounts beyond a deadline to eliminate that rate in 2021, it said.
According to the pension plan, annual interest payments budgeted by the corps alone are more than NT$180 million, the committee said.
The three sources of pension combined have allowed some retired corps employees to achieve an income replacement ratio of more than 100 percent, it added.
Committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) said that some employees have been receiving combined pensions of more than NT$50,000, which should be cut.
Most former corps employees with an income replacement rate of more than 100 percent have put a lot of their savings in their dedicated accounts, she said.
It is unreasonable that some former corps employees are paid more than their salary before retirement, Shih said, adding that the committee would also consider taking measures to eliminate their 18 percent interest rate.
Former corps employees typically receive between NT$20,000 and NT$30,000 in pension, but the excessive pension paid to high-ranking former employees demands reform, she said.
Youth Corps members at a general assembly in October decided to revise their pension plans to match the pension floors of civil servants, which were raised from NT$32,160 to NT$33,140 after a 3 percent wage hike that went into effect earlier this year.
During the meeting, the corps also decided that retirees whose pension is less than the pension floor, like civil servants, should be allowed to retain the 18 percent interest rate.
The committee in August ruled that the corps was a KMT affiliate and froze its assets of NT$5.61 billion on the assumption that they were illicitly gained.
An initial pension plan submitted by the corps set a pension floor of NT$21,000, but was vetoed by members during a meeting.
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