Taipei Times
Date: Nov 18, 2016
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter
The Executive Yuan yesterday approved amendments to lift a prohibition against Taiwanese adopting the children of their Chinese spouses, and exempting income earned in Taiwan by Hong Kong and Macanese maritime and aviation companies from taxes to pave the way for bilateral double-taxation avoidance agreements.
The Cabinet revised a clause in the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例), which prohibits Taiwanese from adopting Chinese children if the adoptive parent already has a child or if the adoptive parent adopts two or more children at the same time.
Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said the council had drafted the measure in response to the Council of Grand Justices’ Constitutional Interpretation No. 712, handed down on Oct. 4, 2013, declaring that Item 1 of Article 65 of the act was unconstitutional.
The interpretation stems from an adoption case in 2007, in which a court ruled against the request of 82-year-old Wang Shao-hsiang (汪少祥) to adopt the son of his wife, Liu Qian (劉茜), from her previous marriage, on the grounds that Wang had three daughters from his previous marriage. [FULL STORY]
