Pharmaceuticals firms are offering doctors "research fees," discounts and free medication to promote their products and some doctors aren't reporting the additional income on their tax returns, the Ministry of Finance announced yesterday.
"Competition between pharmaceutical firms is intense. Because of this competition, they'll give more medicine than was ordered when they make deliveries to doctors and hospitals ... or they'll give rebates after the medicine is sold and offer `research' or `testing' fees [to doctors who use their products]," said taxation department director Sam Wang (?y敢o?s).
"And for the most part, doctors aren't reporting this as income," he said.
"Research" or "testing" fees are given to doctors who help a pharmaceutical company test its products and is subject to the same tax as any other income, he said.
Free medication is a more insidious problem, Wang said.
A common practice is that a doctor or a hospital would order 1,000 pills from a pharmaceutical company and get 100 pills free, he said.
The doctor or hospital keeps costs low while getting a higher income from passing the difference on to patients and the National Health Insurance plan, he said.
"But whether it's a rebate or extra pills, the result is the same," he said.
Wang refused to say how many cases the ministry was currently investigating or what the monetary value of the unreported income was. The cases are still under investigation, he said.
The ministry hopes that doctors who have accepted "research fees" or rebates from pharmaceutical companies will come forward and report the extra income, he said.
Doctors or hospitals who fail to do so will be subject to back taxes, he said.
A close relationship between pharmaceutical companies and hospitals has existed for years but is better now than it was in the past, said legislator and head of psychiatry at Mackay Memorial Hospital, Hung Chi-chang (
"It used to be more common for doctors and hospitals to take money from pharmaceuticals companies, but that's changing. Things are much more transparent now, and the system is modernizing," he said.
In the past, pharmaceutical company executives could offer hospital management gifts and rebates in exchange for promoting their products, he said.
But it is still common for pharmaceutical companies to offer free and discount medication, he said.
"The bigger the hospital, the more serious the problem. It's a question of bargaining power," he said.
"Research" and "assistance" fees can be a legitimate exchange of goods and services between pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, Hung said.
"But any case that involves unreported taxes is worth investigating," he said.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS