January 2017
During the review meeting of the Two International Covenants in Taiwan on January 18th, 2017, Association of World Citizens (AWC) Taiwan gave a presentation addressing two violations of taxpayers' human rights by the tax authority of Taiwan. The observations are drawn from the Tai Ji Men case of injustice.
We would like to address two issues about taxation which we have pointed out again and again, but the government always diverts the focus. 1. Tax disputes could never be solved because of the lack of remedy available to taxpayers. The point of this issue is that the case would be transferred back to tax authority even if the taxpayers win the administrative lawsuit. 2. Tax authority imposes travel ban on taxpayers without the court’s decision.
Criminal punishment and taxation are two major pains that a government inflicts on its people. Official statistics shows that in 2015, there were 6.53 million cases of owing taxes or dues pending for forced execution. The total number of households in Taiwan is around 8.47 million. If you do the math, about three quarters of households are owing taxes or dues. The 20-year long Tai Ji Men tax case is the most typical example of this.
From the beginning, this case is a tool of political persecution. Violations of human rights protection in this case are countless in the past 20 years. They are clearly documented in the three books we provide about the criminal and tax cases. Today, we would like to show you some facts that our government officials have done and they are all supported by government documents and published research papers.
Prosecutor filed the charge with fake evidence, and tax authority issued tax demands based upon the bill of indictment without investigation. The nature of monetary gifts are determined arbitrarily by tax agents. They imposed excessive penalty and they even could get bonus out of it.
According to a scholar’s research, the odds of civilian winning administrative lawsuit in administrative court is only around 6%. Even if taxpayers win the case in administrative court, the case would get transferred back to tax authority and tax agents somehow change the tax amount to issue a new tax demand. Tax authority has unlimited time to issue tax demands. Tai Ji Men has won 17 times, but tax agents have issued 18 tax demands, often dubbed as immortal tax bills by scholars. Until today, justice has not been done to Tai Ji Men.
Tax agents freeze civilian assets without court orders and impose travel bans.
The three instances of criminal court rulings in over 10 years have declared Tai Ji Men not guilty of tax evasions or violations of tax codes. The nature of the money has been determined in the criminal court to be gifting and therefore tax-exempt. However, tax authority ignores the order of criminal court and continue to issue tax demands.
Tax authority never replies the 25 inquiries concerning why the monetary gifts were treated as tuition of a cram school and how the tax amount was computed.
Tax authority reached agreement with Tai Ji Men to conduct open survey. The result of survey shows the money is gifting to the grandmaster. But tax authority violates the principle of good faith and refuses to accept the result and the fact.
The tax authority was involved in the concealment of the evidence favorable to the taxpayers and refused to allow the taxpayers to read the documents related to their case. Those are violations of due process. President of AWC, Rene Wadlow has paid attention to this case for a long time, and filed a complaint to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Kenneth Jacobsen, a human rights lawyer and professor of law at Temple University pointed out that he has never seen a case like Tai Ji Men case, which has so many violations of due process.
The Control Yuan announced the results of two investigations which showed that the prosecutor and the tax authority have seriously violated human rights. Over 250 legislators also showed their supports and demanded that the tax authority should revoke the illegal tax demands. But, over the past 20 years, Tai Ji Men has been trapped in ineffective administrative remedy, and none of the government officials receives punishment for their wrongdoings.
There are a lot of similar cases about unlawful tax demands. For ordinary people, they have no way to fight for their rights against the government. Some of them even committed suicide and some elderly people were sick and died of anger and grief. Those innocent taxpayers still insisted that they hadn't evaded any taxes before they died. Many cases are documented in this book.
The Tai Ji Men tax case has shown many violations of the Two Covenants by the tax authority. Although the experts at the review meeting four years ago paid attention to this issue, the case is still not resolved today. All the problems in the Tai Ji Men case are also what Taiwanese people are facing. We suggest to close the tax case within 8 years after the issuance of the initial tax bill just like the Act of Speedy Trial of Criminal Charges.
The Tai Ji Men case, which started on December 19, 1996, has dragged on for over 20 years now. This case has been deemed as the largest and the longest case of human rights violations by state power with the biggest number of victims since the 228 Incident during the White Terror Period. The Tai Ji Men case contains the criminal and tax cases. The defendants of the Tai Ji Men criminal case have been found not guilty of tax evasion or violation of the tax codes after three instances of court trials in 2007. The defendants who were wrongfully detained during the investigation have all received state compensation. However, the tax authority continues to persecute the innocent taxpayers by issuing unjustified tax bills based on the false and fabricated evidence transferred from the prosecutor. The taxpayers' assets have been frozen and their rights to life and property have been violated for over 20 years. The reputation of Tai Ji Men and its grandmaster and dizi has been seriously damaged, and they have been seriously hurt in their bodies, minds, and souls. For decades Tai Ji Men has been dedicated to the promotion of the traditional culture of qigong and martial arts and has been engaged in peace endeavors around the world. Why has such a wonderful organization been put through such an ordeal?
The cases shown in the three books:“Revelation,” “The Truth,” and “End It from Where It Started,” recently published by the Grand Justice Publishing Ltd., have involved many violations of human rights protected by the Two Covenants. A thorough reading of the books will allow one to clearly understand the severity of the violation of the Two Covenants by Taiwan's judicial and tax agencies.