|
Hard facts prove Wu’s
claims to be false: DPP
DREAMLAND? The income of the wealthiest 5% is
now almost 75 times that of the bottom 5% and low-income families have risen
from 93,000 in 2008 to 112,000 today
By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
Numbers and official audit reports completely refute a claim made by Premier Wu
Den-yih (吳敦義) that the current administration has already made Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) “grand plan” a reality,
the DPP said yesterday.
In separate press conferences, DPP spokespeople and party legislators used data
and reports released by government agencies to rebut recent comments by Wu, who
on Wednesday was reported by the Chinese-language United Evening News as saying
that the “dreamland” Tsai had mapped out for Taiwan was already taking shape
under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.
The real-estate transaction tax that Tsai has proposed as part of her tax reform
has already been implemented by the Ministry of Finance, Wu said.
However, citing reports conducted by the National Audit Office, DPP Legislator
Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) said that the registration of property transaction prices
and property transaction tax payments were not listed under individual property
registration and that as such current assessed land values did not reflect
market prices.
RISING PRICES
Average housing prices in Taipei rose from NT$360,000 per ping (3.3m2) in the
fourth quarter of 2008 to NT$540,000 per ping in the first quarter this year,
she said.
The housing price-personal income ratio also jumped from between eight and 10 in
the first quarter of 2008 to 14.3 this year, which meant that one would only be
able to afford an apartment after 14.3 years of not spending a penny, Wong said.
“The audit report pretty much slaps Premier Wu in the face,” Wong said.
A Control Yuan report released in February said the -government’s failure to
levy a tax on non--residential properties was the main reason for the housing
price spike, DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said.
FALSEHOODS
“These data and government reports show that Wu’s comments are false,” Tsai
said.
The average annual income for farm households in 2009 was NT$872,000, down from
NT$917,000 in 2000, while the average monthly salary of NT$34,415 this year was
also lower than the 2001 average of NT$35,686, DPP spokesman Chuang Ruei-hsiung
(莊瑞雄) told a press conference at DPP headquarters.
Unemployment in the 20 to 24 age bracket was 12.71 percent as of June, about
three times the national average, he said.
DISPARITIES
Income disparity continues to increase, as data showed that the income of the
wealthiest 5 percent was almost 75 times that of the bottom 5 percent, Chuang
said.
In addition, the number of low-income families is up from 93,000 households in
2008 to 112,000 households this year.
|
