A TSU lawmaker yesterday accused government departments of malfeasance for failing to prohibit PFP Chairman James Soong (
Reports indicate that more than 19,000 people were barred from leaving Taiwan by the end of last year for their evasion of NT$500,000 or more in tax. Yet Soong, who has NT$90 million in tax debt, travels as he wishes, according to TSU lawmaker Chien Lin Whei-jun (
Chien Lin said that from 1992 to 2000, Soong had given more than NT$100 million to his son, Allen Soong (
The lawmaker said these transactions were discovered when the Control Yuan was investigating the Chung Hsing Bills Finance case (
The high-profile case, generally believed to have led to Soong's defeat in the March 2000 presidential election, involved a complicated series of allegations relating to financial impropriety that came at the height of the campaign at the end of 1999.
When the tax department notified Soong in January 2000 that he owed NT$90 million, he requested a re-examination.
The lawmaker said that the Ministry of Finance notified Soong in April after its re-examination that he was still accountable for the same amount, NT$90 million.
Soong has since launched an appeal of that ruling, the outcome of which is still pending.
"Soong should have either paid his debt or offered his property as a deposit if he attempted to travel, but he did neither," she said.
It was not until January last year when Soong finally supplied NT$45 million of his bank savings as a deposit.
The lawmaker said that from April 2000 to January last year, Soong should have been prohibited from leaving Taiwan in accordance with tax law. "But how could he travel freely as he liked?" Chien Lin said.
During that period, Soong had visited the US and Germany, according to the lawmaker.
RSS