The Ministry of Finance has released a program detailing measures to fight tax evasion while enhancing tax services as part of its efforts to make the nation’s taxation system fairer.
Deputy Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) said that this year’s anti-tax evasion efforts would be focused on cross-checking information between various taxes such as tariffs and business taxes.
“We will use the business tax database to cross-check business income taxes and examine information on property changes to check gift taxes and inheritance taxes,” Chang said during a press conference on Wednesday.
Apart from cross-checking taxes, the ministry will employ a non-invasive radio-frequency identification system as well as expand sniffer dog services to enhance tariff examination, according to the program details.
The ministry will boost efforts to check whether firms use personal and family expenses or items for other business use to claim input tax credits, Chang said.
Chang said that the ministry will also re-examine the current value of housing and location classification to avoid luxury-home owners paying much lower house taxes than their monthly management fees.
“We found out that in Taipei some NT$10 million [US$315,000] house-owners, who pay a management fee of NT$50,000 every month, have to pay only NT$35,000 in house taxes a year,” he said.
The ministry’s program also includes measures to improve the efficiency of the taxation system, including offering online search services, where taxpayers will be able to check or download information about their tax deductions.
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