Taipei City Government

Commissioner You Shih-Ming of the Department of Finance ( DOF), Taipei City Government (TCG) led the colleagues to visit Commissioner Yu Li-Lin of the Finance Bureau of Taichung City Government today. They exchanged ideas on financial management, tobacco and alcohol management, non-public city property management, disbursement affairs, and the Shwoo Website. The discussions were lively and both sides have been benefited a lot. The key points of the exchange are as follows:

1. Financial management and debt management: In order to strengthen the guidance of local government finance, the Ministry of Finance conducts an assessment of “The Program for Assisting Local Government Finance” every year. In 2021, Taichung City was awarded excellent grades in the assessment of "Financial Management" and Taipei City was awarded excellent grades in the assessment of "Debt Management". In 2022, the two cities also obtained the same grades in the "Financial Management" and "Debt Management" assessments. The two cities have their own strengths, therefore both cities could learn from each other.

2. Tobacco and alcohol management: In view of the fact that the Finance Bureau of Taichung City Government has ranked among the best in the assessment of tobacco and alcohol management in recent years and the number of illegal tobacco and alcohol seized is abundant, their investigation skills are worth learning. Because Taipei City has no coastline and no port, it is difficult to discover a large number of smuggled and illegal tobacco and alcohol cases. We hope to share information on illegal tobacco and alcohol cases through horizontal contact with the authorities. It is hoped that through joint cooperation, we can crack down on crime and protect the health of the people.

3. Non-Public City Property Management: The two cities have lots of Non-Public land outside the city. The main reason for the acquisition is the land reserved for public facilities (tax-deductible land) acquired in accordance with Article 51 of the Enforcement Rules of the Estate and Gift Tax Act before the amendment in 2009. In view of the vast distribution of land outside the city and the limitation of human resources, budget, transportation and time costs, and other factors, it is impossible to investigate in person on-site. To maintain consistency in the management of public land, the finance bureaus of the two cities hope that both cities would appropriate the land reserved for facilities in the city but owned by the counterpart in accordance with the appropriation procedures for development needs so as to align management with use.

4. Disbursement Management: During the meeting, official business exchanges were conducted on the centralized payment business of various government treasury funds, including collection and verification of payment vouchers of various agencies, budget balance verification, treasury fund disbursement, treasury accounting affairs processing, and other projects. The electronic deposit ratio (number of remittances/total number of payments) of the two cities has reached 97% to 99%, which continues to increase the efficiency of government treasury payments and improve the service efficiency of government payments to the public at the same time.

5. The Taipei Shwoo Website: To improve the transparency of the public auction of retired things and the objectives of environmental protection policy such as the effective reuse of resources, and also based on the consideration of the expansion of economies of scale, Taichung City signed a contract in 2013 to be incorporated into the Taipei Shwoo Website. The amount of secondhand goods trading volume of Taichung City Government ranked 3rd place among 15 municipalities and counties (total of 4,313 government agencies as consignors) in the past three years. It was a significant growth. It shows Taichung City Government and Taipei City Government make an effort to promote reusing secondhand governmental goods.

6. The Finance Bureau of Taichung City Government has built a close collaborative relationship with the Land Administration Bureau of Taichung City Government. On this trip, DOF also visited Wu, Cun-Jin, the commissioner of the Land Administration Bureau. The Land Administration Bureau made an all-out effort to develop urban lands, and the surplus of the Equalization of Land Rights Fund paid timely to suffice the treasury.

DOF of Taipei City Government will learn from and share experiences through this business exchange. Both sides have benefited a lot with fruitful results.