Taiwan's TPP Caucus Unveils Priority Bills Focused on Tax Reform and Livelihood Issues

As the new legislative session of the Legislative Yuan is about to begin, political parties have successively laid out their priority bills for the session, hoping to seize the initiative on political and livelihood issues within the limited parliamentary period. The Taiwan People's Party (TPP) legislative caucus officially announced its list of priority bills for the new session, covering the alleviation of the public's economic burden, the care of vulnerable groups, the improvement of domestic traffic safety, and the promotion of several special laws concerning social transformation and forward-looking development. This list not only demonstrates the TPP's ambition to play a key minority role in parliament and strongly lead livelihood issues, but also reflects the various urgent challenges currently facing Taiwan's society in terms of a declining birth rate, population aging, and economic structure.

Regarding the reduction of the public's substantive tax burden and economic pressure, the TPP caucus has targeted amendments to the Income Tax Act, hoping to achieve the effect of substantial tax reduction through tax system adjustments, allowing grassroots laborers and salaried classes to feel a greater impact. Affected by global inflation and continuous rising prices in recent years, the living costs of the Taiwanese public have continued to soar. Although the government has repeatedly adjusted tax-exempt thresholds and deductions in the past, many families under inflationary pressure still find themselves stretched to the limit. The TPP caucus's focus on amending the Income Tax Act this time aims to target this grassroots public grievance, hoping to win cross-party support in parliament and strive for the third reading and passage of the amendments, delivering tangible benefits directly to taxpayers.

In addition to tax reform, targeting the optimization of the national administrative system, the TPP caucus has also included amendments to the Act Governing Total Personnel Quotas of Central Government Agencies as a key bill. This bill has long involved the personnel establishment, administrative efficiency, and public budget allocation of government departments. As government operations become increasingly complex, how to rationally allocate public sector manpower, avoid redundant personnel, and enhance administrative efficiency has always been a focus of attention from all sectors. The TPP caucus hopes that through the legislative amendments, stricter supervision and regulation of government organization and human resource allocation will be carried out to ensure that taxpayers' hard-earned money is spent where it is most needed, while enhancing the public sector's flexibility and adaptability in responding to emerging challenges.

At the level of social welfare and livelihood care, the TPP caucus continues to advance several landmark policies that have been widely discussed by society. These include the continued promotion of health insurance premium subsidies for the elderly. Against the backdrop of Taiwan entering a super-aged society, this issue has long received high attention from all sectors, and how to balance intergenerational fairness with medical protection for vulnerable elderly people is a political and social issue that political parties cannot avoid. In addition, regarding the issue of school lunches, which concerns the healthy growth of the next generation, the TPP caucus advocates for the promotion of a special school lunch act, attempting to regulate food quality, subsidy standards, and nutritional balance from a national height, thereby resolving long-standing pain points such as uneven school lunch quality across various counties and cities and inconsistent burdens on parents.

In terms of traffic reform and human rights bills, the TPP caucus has also delivered concrete proposals, advocating that traffic fines be dedicated exclusively to improving road safety. This proposition directly targets the chronic ailment that has earned Taiwan the "living hell for pedestrians" label by international media in recent years. It hopes to substantially improve sidewalks, traffic lights, and intersection safety through the dedicated use of funds rather than simply treating fines as the end of the matter. At the same time, the caucus is also striving for the legislation or third reading of the surrogate reproduction act, the esports special act, and the dignified death act. These bills span highly controversial and forward-looking fields such as medical human rights, emerging industrial development, and euthanasia, with each involving complex conflicts in ethics, law, and social values.

Looking broadly at the priority bills for the new session announced by the TPP caucus this time, their scope is extremely wide, ranging from traditional tax cuts, social welfare, and transportation, to forward-looking technology industries and human rights ethics issues. Under the new political normal of the Legislative Yuan where no single party holds an absolute majority, whether the TPP, as the key minority, can successfully pass its bills to a third reading will not only test its parliamentary operations and political negotiation capabilities, but will also become an important indicator to examine whether it can implement its political platforms amidst pan-blue and pan-green confrontations. The subsequent battles over these bills in committees and the plenary session are bound to become the focus of Taiwan's political arena this session.