The National Taxation Bureau knew that the bill was fabricated and illegal, yet it maintained and enforced it, Tai Ji Men argues.
by Massimo Introvigne
An article already published in Bitter Winter on May 22nd, 2024.
Tai Ji Men, a menpai (similar to a school) of qigong, martial arts, and self-cultivation appeared in Civil Court in Taiwan on May 5, 2024, requesting national compensation from the National Taxation Bureau of the Central Area for having maintained and enforced an ill-founded tax bill concerning the year 1992.
Most readers of “Bitter Winter” are familiar with the facts of the Tai Ji Men case, a paradigmatic instance of harassment of a new spiritual movement through fabricated tax bills. In 1996, as part of a politically motivated crackdown against several religious and spiritual movements in Taiwan, Tai Ji Men academies were raided and its leaders detained, accused inter alia of tax evasion. According to Prosecutor Hou Kuan-Jen, who started the case, Tai Ji Men was a “cram school.” What Tai Ji Men claimed were gifts given by dizi (disciples) to their Shifu (Grand Master) as usual in Qigong and martial art groups, Hou argued, were in fact taxable tuition fees of the cram school.
In three degree of judgements, including at the Supreme Court in 2007, Tai Ji Men defendants were declared innocent of all charges, including tax evasion. However, the National Taxation Bureau continued to maintain the tax bills for the years 1991 to 1996, based on the cram school argument. After protracted litigation, the National Taxation Bureau of the Central Area corrected to zero the tax bills for 1991, 1993, 1994 and 1995, and the National Taxation Bureau of Taipei did the same for the tax bill for 1996.
However, the National Taxation Bureau of the Central Area maintained the tax bill for 1992, based on the argument that for that year a final decision had been rendered against Tai Ji Men by the Supreme Administrative Court, and all possible remedies had been exhausted. Based on the tax bill for 1992, in 2020 the National Enforcement Agency seized, unsuccessfully auctioned off, and confiscated land in Miaoli that Tai Ji Men regards as sacred and where it planned to build a spiritual and educational center.
The argument for maintaining and enforcing the 1992 tax bill is a mere technicality. The National Taxation Bureau knows that the gifts given to Tai Ji Men’s Shifu in 1992 were in no way different from those he received in the other years.
The National Taxation Bureau also knows that Tai Ji Men is not a cram school. In fact, he should have known it for decades, argues Tai Ji Men before the Civil Court. Already in 1997, the Taiwan Provincial Department of Education issued a letter clearly stating that the teaching of Qigong is a “folk skill” for which the establishment of cram schools is not allowed. The Ministry of Education, which is responsible for cram schools, issued letters three times in 1997 and 1999 stating that Tai Ji Men is not a cram school.
The Legislative Yuan held a public hearing in 2000. At that hearing, Section Chief Tseng Wen-Chang of the Ministry of Education said that Tai Ji Men was indeed not a cram school. The then director of the Taipei Taxation Bureau, Chang Sheng-Ford and the then director of the Taxation Bureau of the Central Area, Yang Chong-Hua, were both there. However, they went on with their fabricated tax bills. After the Control Yuan took the initiative to investigate, it was determined that Prosecutor Hou got involved in eight major violations of the law and the National Taxation Bureau in seven major violations of the law.
The National Taxation Bureau’s first public announcement survey in 2011 found that 7401 declaration forms by Tai Ji Men dizi all claimed that what they gave to their Shifu was a gift. In 2013, the National Taxation Bureau admitted that Tai Ji Men was not a cram school. In 2018, the Supreme Administrative Court pointed out that Tai Ji Men is a qigong, martial arts, and self-cultivation menpai, not a cram school.
Summing up, the National Taxation Bureau has always known that Tai Ji Men is not a cram school and that gifts given by dizi to the Shifu of a menpai are not taxable. It has always known that the gifts of 1992 were not different from those of 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996, for which tax bills were corrected to zero.
Including through answers to letters written to Taiwan’s authorities by well-known foreign scholars, the National Taxation Bureau continues to hide under the argument that the decision on 1992 has become final and there are no further remedies available. This argument is false, and these answers are, to call them with their right name, lies, perhaps put in writing in the hope that foreign scholars are not familiar with the law of Taiwan. In fact, when there are new facts proving that a “final” decision was obviously wrong, Taiwanese law allows for an action to revoke the penalty under Article 117 of the Administrative Procedure Act or withdraw the enforcement under Article 40 of the Tax Collection Act.
The National Taxation Bureau knew that the tax bill for 1992 was ill-founded and illegal, yet maintained and enforced it. For this reason, Tai Ji Men asks the Civil Court to return to it the land in Miaoli, confirm once again that there has never been a tax evasion, and declare according to Article 2, Paragraph 2 of the State Compensation Law, that the National Taxation Bureau for the Central Area violated the law and should be liable for compensation.