50th Anniversary of the Adoption of the ICCPR and ICESCR - Part 2 | WPN World People News

Freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom from want, and freedom from fear are listed as fundamental human rights according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The idea of “building a nation where human rights are respected” has always been boasted by the current and past presidents of Taiwan when they talked about how they would govern the nation. President Ma Ying-jeou once said, “80% to 90% of the human rights violations are committed by the government.” Six years have passed since the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) were adopted in Taiwan. Have Taiwan’s human rights practices aligned with the United Nations’ standards? That was the focus of the forum entitled “Principles of Fact Determinations and Human Rights Protections in Criminal Investigations and Administrative Disputes.”

Experts on human rights, laws, and taxation as well as a judge and a prosecutor explore the topic—“Legal and Tax Reform, It’s Everyone’s Responsibility.”

If the motive is to frame innocent individuals, then the result will definitely be wrong.

The forum explored the principles of fact determination and human rights protection in Taiwan’s criminal investigations and administrative disputes. To illustrate the issues in administrative laws and taxpayers’ human rights, several scholars used the ongoing Tai Ji Men unjust tax case as an example, which first started nearly 20 years ago. They analyzed the fact determination and principle of evidence in taxation and directly pointed out the chaotic situation in Taiwan’s taxation and administrative remedy system. They considered the Tai Ji Men tax case as a landmark case to be discussed in legal education so as to truly implement the fundamental rights protected in Taiwan’s constitution and the ICCPR and ICESCR.

The conference room is packed with hundreds of people from different walks of life who care about human rights development.

Tze-Lung Chen, professor of the Department of Law of National Taiwan University, said that the Tai Ji Men case was purposely fabricated. The motive and purpose of the fact determination is the most important in a case. In criminal cases, if the motive is guided by conscience and fairness, then the result will not be questionable. If the motive is to frame innocent individuals, then the result will be wrong.

Professor Chen said that in Taiwan’s criminal cases, the concept of the separation of prosecution and trial has been widely known and accepted. However, in the administrative courts, the concept of the separation of trial and taxation has not been established, which leads to a chaotic situation where tax officials have administrative, legislative, and judicial powers.

He pointed out that about 20 years ago, Tai Ji Men was falsely charged with fraud and tax evasion. He used the following analogy to explain the case. A prosecutor sent a piece of shit to both the criminal court and tax agency. The criminal court immediately realized that what he sent was a piece of shit and returned that to the prosecutor. However, the tax agency treated the piece of shit as gold and insisted on imposing taxes on an innocent taxpayer. After its unjustified tax disposition has been repeatedly revoked by the courts, the tax agency still claims that it has cut the amount by 92% and insists the taxpayer to swallow the remaining 8% of the shit. That is extremely ridiculous and outrageous! He urged all people to defend their own rights and join the “coalition that refuses to take shit” and to fight against those government officials that force the people to eat shit.

Yan-Sen Deng, professor of law at Soochow University said that an evil law will violate people’s human rights. For example, the reason behind the substance-over-form principle is to ensure fairness in taxation. In fact determination, although the administrative power has its legal basis, the taxation will be unjustified when its content violates human rights.

Judge Ying-Hua Hong of Taipei District Court said that the government inflicts two kinds of pain on its people: tax law and criminal law. Among the pain that the judiciary brings to the people is the very slow litigation processes. The Tai Ji Men criminal case spanned over 10 years, and its tax case has dragged on for nearly 20 years. The victims and the taxpayers in the cases have paid a painful price for the extremely slow litigation processes.

Taxpayers pay a painful price for the terribly slow litigation processes

Accountant Ming-Yi Wang used the Ta Ji Men tax case as an example to explain that the key issue in many cases is erroneous fact determination not the amount of the tax. She said that during the administrative remedy process, Tai Ji Men dizi provided nearly 10,000 affidavits of gifts. The National Taxation Bureau, following the decision of the Petition and Appeals Committee of the Ministry of Finance, which required the NTB to verify the nature of the red envelops to the shifu. The National Taxation Bureau designed survey forms and selected the respondents for the survey, and the survey results all indicated that the red envelops from Tai Ji Men dizi to their Shifu were gifts. In the third instance decision rendered by the criminal court, it was held that "the monetary offerings provided by dizi to the shifu are gifts in nature and should be tax-free income under Article 4, Subparagraph 17 of the Income Tax Act" and "the uniforms needed by dizi and collectively procured by other dizi were not sold for profits" and have nothing to do with Zhang-men-ren of Tai Ji Men and his wife.

In 2012, the National Taxation Bureau, following the resolution of the inter-ministerial meeting held by the Executive Yuan, conducted an open investigation into the matter, and the outcome of the investigation also confirmed that the red envelops from Tai Ji Men dizi to their Shifu were gifts. Since the National Taxation Bureau has admitted that Tai Ji Men is not a cram school, the basis of its original tax disposition, which treated Tai Ji Men as a cram school, has been found to be wrong, so the original tax bill should be canceled.