More than half of the families in Taiwan owe taxes and duties | WPN World People News

A member of Taiwan's Control Yuan pointed that in the years between 2006 and 2008, the cases of employees of the government and state-owned enterprises owing taxes are close to ten thousand (NTD, New Taiwan Dollar), and the total amount owed is over 1.5 billion. Last (2009) year, the Taiwan's Ministry of Justice revealed that the number of administrative enforcement cases on overdue taxes and duties were over 4.2 million. With approximately 7.8 million households registered in Taiwan, the 4.2 million cases means that over half of the Taiwanese families have outstanding taxes and duties and are subject to administrative enforcement by the government. Ms. Chian also disclosed that even public servants with steady incomes owe taxes. This demonstrated the severity of the problems with overdue taxes in Taiwan.

Cases of outstanding taxes continue to rise; the people suspect that there are too many errors in the tax bills and are recalcitrant. According to the statistics of the Supreme Administrative Court, in the past eight years, cases of tax appeal make up as much as 44.79 percent of all appeal cases, the largest category in the thirty types of cases the court deals with. The judicial court also calculated that over 90 percent of tax dispute cases are about substantive principles of taxation. Tax authorities often use substantive principles of taxation to identify the nature of the taxpayers' incomes so as to achieve their taxation purposes and even to give out high fines. Many taxpayers don’t accept the fines and don’t have the ability to pay them, which can go as high as two or three times the original amount, resulting in constant litigations. The win rate of cases against tax administration is only ten percent. Professor Ko-Chan Ge at National Taiwan University believes that the judges at the administrative court do not have enough knowledge about taxes and in many cases rule in favor of tax authorities, resulting in discontented taxpayers. Taxpayers lose their constitutional guarantees and become disadvantaged. Minister of Finance Su-Der Lee said that the objective of taxation if for the taxpayers to pay taxes out of willingness and for the government to only collect justified taxes. This is very different from the current situation.

Premier Dun-yi Wu said that government agencies need to look into the matter of public servants' overdue taxes and find out the reason for it. If it is because of the worsening of the environment or familial issues, then the related department needs to aid or counsel the workers and wait until they have enough money to repay the original taxes. For the protection of human rights on tax grounds, the legislature of developed countries tends to protect the taxpayer’s rights to work and develop their abilities to pay the taxes. The German government, for one, allows its citizens who owe taxes to develop the value of their unsecured assets, and only when they make money, can the government ask them to repay the taxes. They cannot seize the citizens’ assets or limit their freedom without cause. On the other hand, in Taiwan there are 180 thousand families whose rights to leave the country are restricted because of unpaid taxes. They are also deprived of their rights to work and their freedom. Judge Jin-Lung Wang in the civil court of the Judicial Yuan once argued that using the restriction of a taxpayer’s right to exit the country as a way of keeping an eye on him is a crude method. He said that this is like “legal kidnapping,” which is something that only underdeveloped countries would do.

The fact that public servants also owe taxes shows only a tip of the iceberg in the problems of Taiwan's human rights on tax grounds. In the four million plus cases of outstanding taxes, many were issued illegal tax bills to begin with and followed by improper tax collection actions. The reason for unjustified tax bills should be the subject of study for the media.