Moves by the National Taxation Bureau of Taipei to contact taxpayers directly via the telephone threatens to gut Tax Collection Act (稅捐稽徵法) protections, while leaving taxpayers vulnerable to telephone fraud, New Power Party (NPP) Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said yesterday, calling for the passage of a taxpayer protection act.
He was speaking in reference to complaints from members of the Taijimen (太極門) qigong group, who have said that the bureau contacted them by telephone earlier this month as part of a renewed investigation into a 20-year-old tax case involving their master.
Huang said the government’s actions threatened to gut the Tax Collection Act of provisions that say that taxpayers should be notified of investigations in writing.
“If you can call people because it is quicker, more efficient and cuts expenses, you are using an exception to gut the spirit of the law,” he said, adding that commentary attached to the law during its passage stated that exceptions to the written notification requirement were intended to facilitate on-site inspections.
“If you are conducting an on-site inspection, there is no need to worry because people can verify your identity, but how can they verify your identify if it is a telephone call?” he said, adding that opening up the exception makes taxpayers vulnerable to telephone fraud.
Taipei bureau branch Deputy Director Wang Chieh-chen (王玠琛) said that while the actions were legal, the bureau would conduct an internal review.
“There has never been a case like this before and we also feel it was not the best method,” he said, adding that the decision was made after a recent Taipei High Administrative Court ruling forced a change in investigative tactics.
“In the past we already conducted an investigation with written notifications, but it was not fruitful because subjects were uncooperative — repeating that investigation would have been a waste of time and resources,” he said, adding that the government was forced to find a way to “update” its investigative tactics after the court ordered another investigation into the case.
“You can not really say that what they did was illegal,” Tax Agency Deputy Director Wang Hsiu-chung (王玠琛) said, adding that the case was “special” in that the persons notified were not themselves the subject of the investigation.
However, bureau actions still might have been “inappropriate,” she said, promising that no further telephone calls would happen until a review is drafted.
“In the past, we have always told people to hang up any calls claiming to be from the bureau because of previous tax refund telephone fraud — so we have not used the telephone to notify individuals of a refund or other tax events previously,” she said.
National Chung Cheng University professor of law Huang Chun-chieh (黃俊杰) said the case reflected a broader problem of “eternal” tax investigations caused by the inability of court rulings to decisively overturn bureau tax assessments, leading to pressure on the executive branch to continually conduct never-ending investigations.
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