The number of incidents of major tax evasion last year dropped to 915, while unpaid taxes eased to NT$89.51 billion (US$2.75 billion), as some evaders chose to cooperate while the tax recovery period expired for others, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
The ministry has since July 1, 2010, published a list of top tax evaders annually in hopes of pressuring them to pay their dues.
Major tax evaders are people and companies that owe the government more than NT$10 million and NT$50 million respectively in back taxes.
Photo: Tsai Ching-hua, Taipei Times
The list this year is similar to previous years, with late business tycoon and socialite Huang Jen-chung (黃任中) topping the list, owing NT$1.94 billion in estate tax. His older sister, Huang Hsin-ping (黃新平), ranked third, with NT$1.26 billion in back taxes.
His son, Huang Juo-ku (黃若谷), who had NT$1.9 billion in back taxes, was removed from the list after the recovery period expired in 2022, the ministry said.
There is little the ministry can do about the Huang family, as they do not own properties in Taiwan that the government can take, the ministry has said, adding that they would seek assistance at home and abroad once it finds traces of taxable assets.
The Kaohsiung-based family of real-estate businessman Huang Cheng-chih (黃承志) remained second, with NT$1.51 billion in unpaid income and estate taxes. He was the former head of Fu Yow Enterprise Co (婦幼實業) and was charged with fraud in 2001. Huang Cheng-chih has since fled to China.
Hsu-Cheng Wen-wen (許鄭溫溫) is new to the list, with back taxes of NT$521 million. She was the wife of Cosmos Bank (萬泰銀行) founder and chairman Hsu Sheng-fa (許勝發), who passed away in 2019. The court last year handed down a ruling on Hsu-Cheng’s case and confirmed she was the inheritor of her husband’s estate.
As for corporate tax evaders, Holiday Inn Asiaworld Taipei (環亞飯店), which changed ownership and became Illume Taipei (茹曦酒店), topped the list with NT$2.18 billion in back taxes, ministry data showed.
Asiaworld Taipei was followed by two Taichung-based nightclubs owing NT$1.16 billion and NT$1.09 billion in back taxes each.
The maximum tax recovery period is 15 years, following legal revisions in 2007, Huang Jen-chung’s case would stay valid until 2032, as the revision does not apply to old cases.
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
READY TO BUY: Shortly after Nvidia announced the approval, Chinese firms scrambled to order the H20 GPUs, which the company must send to the US government for approval Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) late on Monday said the technology giant has won approval from US President Donald Trump’s administration to sell its advanced H20 graphics processing units (GPUs) used to develop artificial intelligence (AI) to China. The news came in a company blog post late on Monday and Huang also spoke about the coup on China’s state-run China Global Television Network in remarks shown on X. “The US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” the post said. “Today, I’m announcing that the US government has approved for us
The National Stabilization Fund (NSF, 國安基金) is to continue supporting local shares, as uncertainties in international politics and the economy could affect Taiwanese industries’ global deployment and corporate profits, as well as affect stock movement and investor confidence, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement yesterday. The NT$500 billion (US$17.1 billion) fund would remain active in the stock market as the US’ tariff measures have not yet been fully finalized, which would drive international capital flows and global supply chain restructuring, the ministry said after the a meeting of the fund’s steering committee. Along with ongoing geopolitical risks and an unfavorable
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
RSS