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.
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday criticized the nuclear energy referendum scheduled for Saturday next week, saying that holding the plebiscite before the government can conduct safety evaluations is a denial of the public’s right to make informed decisions. Lai, who is also the chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), made the comments at the party’s Central Standing Committee meeting at its headquarters in Taipei. ‘NO’ “I will go to the ballot box on Saturday next week to cast a ‘no’ vote, as we all should do,” he said as he called on the public to reject the proposition to reactivate the decommissioned
US President Donald Trump on Friday said that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) told him China would not invade Taiwan while Trump is in office. Trump made the remarks in an interview with Fox News, ahead of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “I will tell you, you know, you have a very similar thing with President Xi of China and Taiwan, but I don’t believe there’s any way it’s going to happen as long as I’m here. We’ll see,” Trump said during an interview on Fox News’ Special Report. “He told me: ‘I will never do
The Legislative Yuan yesterday approved an aid and recovery package authorizing the government to allocate up to NT$60 billion (US$1.99 billion) for regions hit by Typhoon Danas and subsequent torrential rains last month. Proposed by the Executive Yuan on Aug. 7, the bill was passed swiftly after ruling and opposition lawmakers reached a consensus in inter-party talks on relief funding and assistance for disaster-stricken areas. The package increases the government’s spending cap from the originally proposed NT$56 billion to NT$60 billion, earmarked for repairing and rebuilding infrastructure, electricity systems, telecommunications and cable TV networks, cultural heritage sites and other public facilities.
FLEXIBLE FORCE: Only about 10 percent of small drones reach their target, an expert said, which is why it is important to make it easier to procure large numbers of drones The military is planning to recategorize military drones as “consumables/munitions,” rather than as aircraft, to speed up the procurement process, the army said yesterday. The Army Command Headquarters said the decision was made because drones, like munitions, need to be rapidly replaced, and thus should be categorized as consumables/munitions “to meet the army’s practical needs.” The headquarters’ confirmation came after the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) early yesterday reported that the army was about to make the classification change based on the example of the US, which is Taiwan’s biggest arms provider. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a
RSS