In a season when most office workers are waiting for their year-end bonuses, some public servants can only hope to get their salary in time. Due to severe financial crunch, county governments including Pingtung, Jiayi, and Ilan all have trouble meeting payment demands by the Chinese New Year, making it necessary for them to seek help from the central government.

The Tropical Agricultural Expo, which always opened right before the Chinese New Year, is cancelled this year as the Pingtung County Government tries to save its expenses.

Since the county magistrate Tsao Chi-hung took office, he has watched the expenses closely but the government still falls short of 4.9 billion NTD this year.

Besides Pingtung County, Taitung, Yunlin, Ilan, Nantou and Jiayi are also facing similar situations, with Jiayi's financial gap of as huge as 5.6 billion NTD.

The business tax from these agricultural countries is quite low.

The income from the tax is not enough to support the basic personnel expenditure and other expenses.

Most of the county governments have requested to take out loans from the Central government.

However, the problems are always there.

Scholars believe the government should quickly amend the laws and the planning of the centrally allocated tax revenue to regulate or encourage local governments to do better financial planning.

In addition to borrowing from the central government, some counties are also taking out loans from banks.

Construction payments and employee salary are to be paid first, with performance bonus being awarded to employees after Chinese New Year holidays.

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