A group of private university presidents yesterday lashed out at what they called "discrimination" against private universities in existing taxation regulations, which adopt different tax deduction standards on donations for public and private universities.
According to the Income Tax Law, an individual is entitled to a deductin of up to 20 percent on donations to education, cultural and charity organizations, while a company can enjoy a 10 percent deduction on such donations.
However, donations to the government are 100 percent deductible, for both individuals and companies. An interpretation issued by the Ministry of Finance in 1976 states that donations to public schools are considered "donations to the government" and enjoy full tax deductions. Some legislators are seeking to revise the law claiming it unfairly discourages donations to private universities.
"The Income Tax Law apparently discriminates against private universities," said Shih Hsin University President Cheng Chia-lin (
Cheng, who heads the Association of Private Universities and Colleges (
Though up to 60 percent of university students attend private universities, they enjoy no more than five percent of the government's funding for higher education, Cheng said.
The call for standardizing the tax deduction rates has mounted recently as public universities, which were totally funded by the government before 1996, are now required to raise at least 20 percent of their funds.
Yang Chung-hwa (
Ho Cho-fei (
Ho noted that while 47.1 percent of the ministry's budget was earmarked to finance public universities in 1997, the percentage dropped to 38.1 percent in 1999. The subsidies for private colleges constituted 7.6 percent of the ministry's budget in 1995 and grew to 10.5 percent in 1998.
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