The Ministry of Transport today (2nd) announced an amendment to the "Measures for Allocation and Utilization of Road Traffic Violation Fine Revenue", clarifying that the proportion of future road traffic fine revenue allocated to improving traffic safety and law enforcement will be increased from the current 12% to "100%", and each county and city government must regularly announce the implementation results and accept supervision.
The current traffic violation fine revenue distribution and road safety improvement allocation ratio in Taiwan are mainly based on the "Road Traffic Violation Fine Revenue Distribution and Utilization Measures" formulated by the Ministry of Transportation. According to different reporting agencies and jurisdictions, municipalities and county (city) governments report 75% of the cases belong to the municipality or county (city) government, especially the six urban areas and dense areas are often classified as 99% in the municipal treasury according to regulations; 24% is allocated to the punishment agency as business and law enforcement-related rewards or funds; 1% is transferred to the national treasury (central government).
Among them, the legal allocation ratio of fines only stipulates that "at least 12%" will be used for road traffic safety improvement, and most of the other parts will go into the municipal treasury of each county and city government. Therefore, it is often criticized because each county and city government's efforts to issue fines equals more municipal treasury revenue. Especially in the six municipalities directly under the Central Government, almost all fine revenue will flow into the municipal treasury.
Hu Diqi, Director of the Department of Public Transport and Supervision of the Ministry of Transport, said that the purpose of amending the law is to "take it from traffic and use it for traffic." The revenue from traffic violation fines will be truly used to improve transportation, including traffic engineering, law enforcement, etc., and each county and city government must announce the implementation results every six months to ensure that every violation fine truly flows back to the front line.
According to statistics, the top five "distributed" fine revenue to counties and cities last year were all municipalities directly under the Central Government, in order: New Taipei City 3.677 billion yuan, Taipei City 3.153 billion yuan, Taichung City 2.893 billion yuan, Taoyuan City 2.507 billion yuan, and Kaohsiung City 2.482 billion yuan. Hu Diqi said that it is estimated that the fine revenue allocated to local governments last year was about 20.5 billion yuan. After the implementation of the new system, it is expected that more than 18 billion yuan of additional real road safety resources can be injected each year.
Hu Diqi said that the new system also clearly stipulates that local governments must prepare and implement in accordance with the "Budget Law", and publish the preparation and implementation progress of fine revenue every six months, and actively accept inspections by audit agencies and the public; if the earmarked funds are not implemented, the competent authorities will require correction within a time limit according to the law. Local governments can use budget flexibility for substantive projects such as optimization of signs and markings, renovation of overpasses and underground tunnels, and addition of guardrails and reflectors according to accident hotspots in their jurisdictions.
Hu Diqi said that the new law will be in line with the local government budget preparation schedule and will be officially put into effect in the fiscal year following its promulgation and implementation, and is expected to be put into effect in 2028.
