Subsidy fund amounts to NT$40 billion and an estimated 600,000 “low-and middle-income households” which take in less than NT$30,000 per month, are expected to benefit, or a total of 3 million people.
So, for people earning less than 30k / Month, you will/should/expect to receive a Red Envelope worth 10k.
Am I the only one who fails to understand this and how could this possibly help the already drowning Tsai government.
Well yes, if you make 30,250 NT$ /month you’re out of luck!
Cynical people might call this “vote buying.”
The article mentions that the government will use money from a “budget surplus”. Is that a thing?
So the government thinks it’s ok to redistribute 38b dollars from mid/high tax-payers to low tax payers rather than using that fat chunk of money to fix/improve things that could benefit everyone?
Holy shit.
Ma did the same with the 20k generation who had no jobs. I know, we got like 20 interns that time.
Well, I´d rather have it spent there than somewhere more idiotic.
Vote buying in general is quite rampant in Taiwan.
We have had this kind of bonuses before, twice with Ma, if memory serves me. Those were for shopping, this one is a bit more generous and helps the underpiad.
We have 4000 employees of solar factories that are on “unpaid vacation”. I´d love to see some help given to them, too. If they were working, they´ve paid their taxes.
Yup, I fail to understand how could providing red-envelopes be seen as a measure to tackle all those so relevant problems .
Yeah, those were retarded. Here’s some free money to spend on stuff you don’t need. Basically they’re printing free money which everyone knows doesn’t help anyone.
Exactly, free cash handouts never end well. I mean once every couple years is fine but it can’t be allowed to become common.
Just look at it as a tax return.
Returned to the people who didn’t pay those taxes?
They pay taxes.
Barely.
Ma gave it to everyone, including foreigners with arc. I kept a couple of his notes as a souvenir
Interesting though how pollution, food safety, food supply security, sustainable development etc doesn’t have enough $. Taiwan is too rich for its own good. This island could be one big glistening Singapore, minus a lot of their oppression, quite easily and relatively fast. The presdidnt is as dumb as the corner Betel but shop she grew up by…sadly, kmt is too, just with no morals.
I’d have preferred to see those 38b invested in solar/wind energy rather than becoming a one-off Costco run for 3m people.
But hey, some politicians import new voters, others buy the current ones.
More like Lotto tickets, oamisua, betelnut and Whisbih.
I was trying to be optimistic. My first thought was the fake money to burn, that’s always a good investment.
See, it’s really an incentive to increase your own income so that you, too, can someday pay your increase to Taipei so they can use it to buy votes. Maybe next year, too!
It’s what all the cool kids do. You want to be a cool country, too, right? 
Too bad they don’t put that money toward the ailing NHI fund
You don’t have to be cynical to call it that.