Several civic groups yesterday urged the government to halt sales of duty-free cigarettes at the nation’s airports to put an end to the rampant practice of people buying large quantities of tax-exempt tobacco products and selling them to youngsters for a profit.
“Since last year, we have been receiving anonymous complaints that a growing number of tobacco brokers, duty-free shop employees, airport workers, or tourist guides have taken advantage of the nature of their professions to buy large quantities of duty-free cigarettes abroad or at the nation’s airports and smuggle them into the country,” John Tung Foundation chief executive officer Yao Shi-yuan (姚思遠) said yesterday in a press release.
Yao said nearly 33 million packs of cigarettes are smuggled into the country each year this way, with an estimated market value of NT$3.6 billion (US$120 million).
“Allowing such products to enter the local market not only puts public health at risk, but it also costs the government about NT$1.3 billion in tax revenue each year,” Yao said.
Chen Shu-li (陳淑麗), a permanent voluntary worker at the foundation, said that the huge price difference — about NT$300 to NT$400 per carton — between duty-free tobacco and that sold locally is fueling the trade for smuggled goods.
“Due to their relatively low price, duty-free cigarettes are particularly appealing to teenagers who live on a limited allowance,” Chen said, urging the government to immediately stop selling duty-free cigarettes for the sake of the health of young people and national security.
Consumers’ Foundation honorary chairman Jason Lee (李鳳翱) said that although government regulations limit the number of duty-free cigarettes that Taiwanese tourists can bring in to one carton, violators only face a fine of NT$500 without any criminal penalties.
“Such a regulation exists in name only and explains why the airports have become a hotbed for smugglers of duty-free tobacco,” Lee said.
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Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but