The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Wednesday announced proposals to curb the government’s use of special budgets and expand the allocation of tax revenues to local governments.
TPP legislator at-large candidates Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) and Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) made the proposals during a news conference at the campaign headquarters of TPP Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) in New Taipei City.
Speaking first, Huang said that Taiwan’s current system gives the central government control of 82 percent of tax revenue, leaving local governments underfunded and unable to raise sufficient revenues on their own.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
He claimed that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supported reforming the law governing such matters — the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) — when it was in opposition, but has made no effort to do so since it came to power in 2016.
To resolve these issues, the TPP is to push for legal amendments to expand the distribution of funds to local governments and ensure that they are allocated at a uniform rate to all cities and counties, Huang said.
Huang’s proposal echoed previous TPP pronouncements on the issue, which have criticized the fact that almost two-thirds of the tax revenue allocated to local governments go to the six special municipalities, with the remaining one-third split between 16 other cities and counties.
Meanwhile, Chang said the TPP would also push to amend the Budget Act (預算法) to ensure the government does not use special budgets outside of the general budget as a “blank authorization” for unrestrained spending.
In response to the criticism, DPP spokesman Chang Chih-hao (張志豪) said that Ko had failed to show fiscal discipline as Taipei mayor.
In addition, Chang accused him of raiding city government funds to repay municipal debt. Under Article 83 of the Budget Act, special budgets can be proposed for wars or emergency national defense installations, major national economic events, major calamities or “major political events that take place irregularly or once every few years.”
Under President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the government has passed NT$2.4 trillion (US$76.7 million) in special budgets, including funding for the Forward-Looking Infrastructure Development Program that has gone to overbudgeted projects like the Hsinchu Municipal Baseball Stadium, Chang said.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS