The Curse of Bonus Culture
Officers Abusing Power to Get Bonuses: The Secret Behind the Tai Ji Men Case
November 10, 2020
What are the disadvantages of rewarding civil servants with bonuses? In 2004, 163 legislators in Taiwan proposed to abolish the bonus program for tax collection. However, the bonus program did not disappear. The Legislative Yuan has repeatedly supported similar programs, and the people have become the biggest victims. In September 2020, Ms. Huang, a volunteer for the Legal and Tax Reform League, was arrested just because she held a sign in support of Tai Ji Men.
What message was on her sign? The sign reads, “Lee Gui-fen, the head of the Hsinchu Branch of the Administrative Enforcement Agency, how much bonus did you get from handling the Tai Ji Men case? NT$100,000? NT$1 million? Or NT$10 million? Give it back!!!”
Volunteers for the Legal and Tax Reform League across Taiwan have shown their support for Tai Ji Men. They also questioned how much bonus Lee Gui-fen got from handling the illegal and forced auction of Tai Ji Men’s land. The total annual bonus amount for the Administrative Enforcement Agency is approximately NT$190 million. How much bonus does an executive officer get? Is there any illegality or corruption involved? Is there any secret behind the bonus program?
The Tai Ji Men case started when prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen launched illegal searches of Tai Ji Men in 1996. In 2002, the Control Yuan initiated an investigation into the case and indicated that the prosecutor had eight major violations of law in his handling of the case. It sent the case to the Ministry of Justice, demanding it to take disciplinary action against the prosecutor. The Ministry of Justice should have punished the prosecutor based on the Control Yuan’s investigation report; however, it protected its own and allowed the ten-year statute of limitations for disciplinary action to expire. Now the prosecutor has been promoted to deputy director of the Agency Against Corruption of the Ministry of Justice!
The Tai Ji Men case has dragged on for 24 years; Tai Ji Men’s shifu (master) and dizi (similar to students) have been persecuted over the past two decades. The culprit for their suffering is prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen, who abused his power and brought wrongful prosecution against Tai Ji Men. The Control Yuan has listed this case as a case of gross human rights violations in the “General Report on the Work of Human Rights Protection of the Control Yuan (1999-2005).” This year, in order to make Article 125 of the Criminal Code, which is about the crime of abuse of power, in line with the spirit of the “United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,” the Ministry of Justice plans to make this article applicable to all members of the police system and add regulations about crimes of abuse of power and detention. The Ministry of Justice pointed out that law enforcement officers should not treat the accused in any inhumane way. Only when the judicial officers and police officers are subject to the same standards can human rights be fully protected.
Former Control Yuan Member Chien Lin Hui-Chun, who investigated the National Taxation Bureau’s handling of the Tai Ji Men case, said that the bonus program should have been abolished long ago because greed can be fueled when there are bonuses. Since government officials receive taxpayer dollars, they must follow their conscience and do their jobs well.
Former Tainan County Magistrate Su Huan-chih, a lawyer, said that Taiwan's democracy, politics and human rights are still very backward, like those in the era of martial law 30 years ago. He said that Tai Ji Men is admirable for insisting on the truth and pursuing fairness and justice! He called for the abolition of the bonus program for administrative enforcement officers in order to protect taxpayer’s human rights.
There are many cases of tax injustice in Taiwan, and the bonus program is believed to be the culprit. The bonus program started during the period of martial law, and there were rewards for reporting tax cheats and collecting taxes but no punishment for false reporting or issuing unjustified tax bills. That caused some people to make false accusations and prompted tax officers to issue unlawful tax bills, and little progress has been made in Taiwan's tax system since the period of martial law. Over the years, the bonus program has drawn strong criticism from legislators of all political parties for being illegal. Yen Kuan-heng, a former legislator, pointed out that there is no legal basis for the bonuses of NT$130 million for tax collection, and thus they constitute a form of bribery. Dr. Chen Tze-lung, former professor of law at National Taiwan University and president of Taiwan Association for Financial Criminal Law Study, condemned the bonus program as a practice in the Nazi era!
In 2004, because of growing public outrage, the proposal by 163 legislators to abolish the bonus program for tax collection was passed. However, the bonus program without a legal basis resumed in 2008. Although there were disputes over the bonus program every year, a budget for the program is still made each year. There were approximately 1.9 million cases of back taxes and fees to be enforced in Taiwan in 2001. In 2019, there were 11.04 million cases, which was 5.84 times higher than that in 2001. How many fabricated cases are among them?
In 2019, Legislator Wang Jung-chang said that there is no mandate for the bonus program, which shows that the bonuses are illegal. On October 29, 2020, legislator Kao Chia-yu proposed to freeze NT$3 million of the nearly NT$100 million allocated for bonuses for tax collection during the budget review meeting, but the proposal was blocked by two other legislators. Is there a secret behind the bonus program?
The Tai Ji Men case has revealed many serious problems in Taiwan’s legal and tax systems. Since 1996, government officials handling the case that have abused their power and violated the law have not been punished; on the contrary, many of them have been promoted and received bonuses. Everyone in Taiwan can be a victim if the corruption is not stopped. If the government does not redress cases of injustice and does not hold the perpetrators accountable, then the inaction is tantamount to allowing the corruption to continue, and the people of Taiwan will continue to suffer as a result. If Taiwan remains to be a country that is not really democratic and ignores human rights, then it will be very difficult for it to keep pace with the international standards!
