The Supreme Administrative Court ruled that People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
The Supreme Administrative Court said the US$480,000 was unused funds from Soong's campaigns in 1995 and 1997 for Taiwan provincial governor, and that the money counted as his personal property.
"Because Soong put his personal property into his son's accounts in the US, it should be treated as a gift, and therefore Soong needs to pay gift taxes and a fine to the nation," the court ruling said.
Soong told the court that he often paid visits to foreign countries when serving as Taiwan provincial governor from 1995 to 1998. Because he did not attain public funding for the foreign tours, he sent his own money to his son, Soong Chen-yuan (
The ruling said that if Soong thought the money was not a gift for his son, then he should have proved it to the court. But Soong provided little evidence to the court, so it had no choice but to rule against him, the ruling said.
The court said Soong ran for and won the office of Taiwan provincial governor in 1994.
He asked his mother-in-law to send US$150,000 to his son in the US in 1995, and then asked a friend surnamed Lee to deposit US$330,000 in his son's bank account in 1997.
The total was US$480,000, the court added.
Because of Soong's role in the Chung Hsing Bills Finance scandal (
In addition to the lawsuit ruling on Friday, Soong still faces five cases involving unpaid taxes and fines. Those cases have yet to be ruled on by the court.
One of the cases involves allegations that Soong stole money from the KMT and used it to buy US bonds in his son's name. Soong has claimed that the money was to be used as a gift for members of Chiang Kai-shek's (
However, the Ministry of Finance has filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Administrative Court, asking Soong to pay NT$90 million in taxes and fines for his purchases of US bonds, but the case has yet to be resolved.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification