Immediately following the passage of amendments to the Act Governing Food Sanitation and the Income Tax Act in the extra legislative session on July 25, the Executive Yuan expressed its gratitude to lawmakers and Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng for their support and said it would pull no punches when implementing these laws.
On the resolution to the American beef import issue, which is connected to the food act amendment, the Executive Yuan stated that it will allow U.S. beef imports under the principles of "determining safety limits, treating beef and pork separately, instituting mandatory labeling and excluding internal organs." It will formulate the safety limits on the amount of the leanness-enhancer ractopamine allowed in beef imports according to international standards, and it will strictly enforce mandatory labeling of U.S. beef containing ractopamine to safeguard public health and consumers' right to make informed choices.
The Income Tax Act amendment reinstates a capital gains tax on securities trading and will go into effect January 1, 2013. In response to the opposition's criticism that the passed amendment was proposed by ruling Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers and differs from the Cabinet's original proposal, the Executive Yuan said that valuable suggestions of the business sector, academia and professionals were sought for and implemented into the bill as reinstatement of a capital gains tax on securities investments is a matter of public concern. As such, enforcing the KMT-proposed amendment should not be viewed as a departure from Executive Yuan policy goals because the amendment is still based on the thinking of the Cabinet's original proposal.