Finance ministry officials visited the Taipei Prosecutors' Office yesterday to discuss the ministry's report on its investigation into the financial scandal surrounding independent presidential candidate James Soong's (宋楚瑜), an official said. But he denied media reports that new material was presented.
"We went there at the request of the prosecutor who wanted us to explain to him certain points on our reports," said Sam Wang (
"No, we did not present new information to the prosecutor," Wang told the Taipei Times.
"He wanted us to make some clarifications to help him better understand some points, so we did," said Wang.
Wang refused to reveal what was discussed during his meeting with the prosecutor, Hung Tai-wen (
Allegations of Soong's financial affairs surfaced last December when KMT legislator Yang Chi-hsiung (楊吉雄) accused the former Taiwan Provincial Governor and his family of involvement in irregular money transactions involving hundreds of millions of NT dollars. Yang has filed charges of tax evasion against Soong.
The finance ministry filed its investigation report on Soong's financial dealings with the Taipei Prosecutor's Office at its request in December.
Answering questions on whether his ministry would send more reports to the prosecutor, Wang said, "I don't know. It depends on whether the prosecutor requests further information."
The case against Soong involves funds that were deposited in accounts belonging to his relatives, including his son, sister-in-law and her son.
Soong has since claimed the funds were intended for the care of relatives of the late president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) as well as "party business."
Last week the finance ministry sent Soong a tax bill for tax arrears on the money deposited in his relatives' accounts.
Soong has two months to pay the bill, which is believed to be a retroactive gift tax for the NT$140 million deposited in an account of his son Soong Chen-yuan (
Soong has said that the NT$240 million involved in the scandal, part of which was in his son's account, had been entrusted to him by the KMT to perform various tasks and that he had tried unsuccessfully to return the money to the party.
Prosecutor Hung has called witnesses in for questioning, including several business owners who donated money to the KMT through Soong.
Hung is reportedly set to summon more witnesses after the Chinese New Year holidays.
The Control Yuan, the government's watchdog body, had also established a task force to investigate Soong over possible violations of the Election and Recall Law (
After Soong's election campaign for the governor's post in 1994, he filed a declaration of election expenditures that amounted to exactly the NT$104.98 million the Election and Recall Law allows.
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