| Summary: | 碩士 === 東吳大學 === 法律學系 === 106 === In Taiwan, taxpayers who fail to meet their statutory obligations will incur tax penalties, including tax administrative penalty and tax criminal penalty, and the latter is specified under Articles 41, 42, 43 and 47 of the Tax Collection Act (hereafter referred to as the Act). This thesis seeks to analyze the penalties for tax evasion, with a particular focus on the constituent elements (Tatbestand) of crime under Article 41 and its relevance to Article 47 of the Act.
Treating the legal interests (Rechtsgut) safeguarded under tax-evasion penalties as the point of departure, and by reference to pertinent scholarly opinions, this thesis not only examines the constituent elements of tax-evasion crime under Article 41 of the Act, but also addresses several contentious issues in practice. Poring over related amendments, precedents, and grand justices’ legal opinions in J.Y. Interpretation No. 687, this thesis also carefully traces the evolution of Article 47 of the Act.
Prior to J.Y. Interpretation No. 687, Article 47 used to function as the substitute penalty for Article 41 of the Act. An unconstitutional infringement notwithstanding, as declared indirectly in the grounds of J.Y. Interpretation No. 687, such substitute penalty, together with ensuing questionable practices, have continued after the 2012 amendment to Article 47, since the amendment did not comprehensively review the relevance between the two Articles, so that the constituent elements of crime under Article 47 remain untouched, and J.Y. Interpretation of them is indispensable when the provisions of this Article applies.
Placing this issue in the historical context, the provisions of Articles 41 and 47 ought to form a closely related “double punishment” when the Act was promulgated in 1976. As a matter of fact, they have been virtually converted to a closely interlinked “substitute penalty” by court precedents, although the provisions of Articles 41 and 47 have stipulated separate criminal punishments after J.Y. Interpretation No. 687. On top of that, Articles 41 and 43 of the Act were not amended along with others in 2012. The consequence has become apparent in the debatable applications of the provisions included.
Based on its synthetic analysis, this thesis concludes with a practical suggestion for future amendment to the Act as well as for its enforcement, in the hope that the legal system and institutions associated with the penalties for tax evasion can be substantially improved.
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