Deadline to Pursue Large Tax Delinquents Extended by Five Years

Deadline to Pursue Large Tax Delinquents Extended by Five Years

Sources: All Taipei Newspapers

November 9, 2011

Yesterday the Legislative Yuan passed in third reading an amendment to Article 23 of the Tax Collection Act, dubbed “pursuit of tax arrears clause.”  The newly-passed provisions stipulate that the deadline for collecting certain tax arrears exceeding NT$ 500,000 be extended five more years, i.e., until March 4, 2017.  Similar tax arrears cases below NT$ 500,000 will be closed.

According to the Taxation Agency under the Finance Ministry, 10,975 cases involving 4,957 tax delinquents are under NT$ 500,000, with total tax arrears exceeding NT$ 800 million.

The same source pointed out that tax arrears exceeding NT$ 500,000 included 26,721 cases involving 5,752 tax delinquents, with total tax arrears exceeding NT$ 87.1 billion.   The government now has until March 4, 2017 to collect the tax arrears or the cases would be closed.

The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment to the Tax Collection Act in 2007 which changed the indefinite period the Finance Ministry could pursue tax delinquency cases to a five-year deadline after cases had been referred to the Administrative Enforcement Agency under the Justice Ministry.  Therefore, the deadline to collect tax arrears in cases that had been referred to the Administrative Enforcement Agency in 2007 would have expired on March 4, 2012.

According to an official in the Finance Ministry, if the deadline had not been extended, nearly NT$ 88 billion in tax arrears might automatically be written off on March 4, 2017 for those cases that had been referred to the Administrative Enforcement Agency before March 5, 2007, so the Executive Yuan then submitted another amendment to the Legislative Yuan extending the deadline to ten years, i.e., from March 5, 2007 to March 4, 2017.

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