A Research On Philanthropy Legal System During The Republic Of China

During the Republic of China (R.O.C), the rapid development of philanthropy needed the rule of law necessary to carry on the standard objectively. Charitable legislation became the common demands of different sectors of the community. At the same time, the social environment for charitable legislation also tended to be mature. On the one hand, Chinese traditional charitable legal system in the ancient provided the useful native resources for the R.O. C. charitable legislation, and became its deep historical foundation; On the other hand, since the early years of the 20th century, China's legal modernization had penetrated and developed unceasingly, which also created the essential condition for the charitable legislation.In the legislative practice, the traditional charitable thought, the modern Western idea of charity and Sun Yat-sen's People's Livelihood constituted the concept of philanthropy legislation of R.O. C. Because there were multiple legislative bodies in philanthropy law, legal sources were also many levels, mainly in the Constitution, laws and administrative rules, departmental regulations and local laws and regulations, etc. Different levels of legal documents played the role of mutual convergence and complement each other in the functional mechanism. Taking a panoramic view of the process of philanthropy legislation, it undergone the initial stage in the period of the Beijing Government and the development and improvement stage in the period of the National Government in NanjingFrom the view of legal Structure, philanthropy legislation in the Republic of China covered four aspects of charity executive legislation, charitable organization regulatory legislation, preferential tax legislation and charitable donations honored legislation. Charity Executive is not only organization foundation and basic path of the Government of R. O.C. administration charity, but also the part of the government's social administrative system. The Beijing Government and the National Government in Nanjing promulgated a series of administrative law, established a set of relatively perfect executive directors in charge of charity. In the charity supervision and Regulation legislation, the Republic of the Constitution provided the freedom of association rights, and the civil law established the legal status of charitable organizations. At the same time, a series of laws and regulations promulgated, such as The Law on Supervising Charitable Organizations, which covered the registration of charitable organizations, the management of day-to-day administration, charitable fund-raising, financial supervision. In tax legislation, the Government of R.O.C. adopted a charitable tax incentive system, which given to the charitable organizations and the donors certain tax relief treatment. Specifically, charitable organizations can enjoy four main categories of tax benefits, including profit tax, consumption tax, behavior tax and income tax; the donators can also enjoy the tax benefits of estate duty, etc.. In the charitable donation legislation, there mainly were two types of laws and regulations, namely, the nonprofit charitable donations and disaster relief charitable donation. In addition, some comprehensive award regulations also included some provisions on charitable donations and related charitable activities.At the charity legislative process, non-governmental charity also had the opportunity to express their wishes, which formatted a certain degree of interaction with the government. Red Cross Society of China and Shanghai Charity Federation were two typical cases. Red Cross Society of China was one of the largest charitable organizations in modern China. After the Revolution of 1911, the central government started the Red Cross legislation. In 38 years, they introduced the Bill for Red Cross Society of China in 1914, The Management Ordinance on the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China in 1933, The Orgniazational Ordinance in wartime on the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China in 1943, drafted the Act on the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China. As the legislative object, the Red Cross Society of China had corresponding acts on these regulations, or on its own initiative to boycott, or passive acceptance. Shanghai Charity Federation, which was established in April 1927, was a broad social impact of the societies of the Commonwealth in Shanghai charitable sector in the latter of R.O.C. From 1929 to 1930, The Law on Supervising Charitable Organizations and its enforcement rules and The Charter of Shanghai Charity Property Consolidation Committee promulgated. Around on the content of the above-mentioned charitable laws and regulations, Shanghai Charity Federation also embarked on a series of negotiations with the National Government in Nanjing and the Shanghai Municipal Government, and took some boycott. Through the analysis of the status and role of non-governmental charitable organizations in the process of at central and local government legislation, we can reveal the relationship between the state and society in modern China from one side.In order to reflect the operational mechanism and the actual results of the philanthropic legal system in R.O.C, we need some specific cases. Thus, we choose two important philanthropy laws as the case study, namely The Law on Supervising Charitable Organizations and The Ordinance on Award for the Donation to Education. As the result, the former law played an important role in the specification and supervision of charitable organizations, in honoring charitable organizations and individuals; the latter established the charitable donation legal system, and aroused the enthusiasm of the people's donations. At the same time, the ordinance has promoted the development of education in R.O.C, and improved the teaching condition in a certain extent. Of course, because of many social factors, the implementation of the philanthropy law in effect has failed to do as expected. The philanthropy law of the Republic had the characteristics of inheritance compatible with a transplant, encourage and control of parallel. Charitable legislation of R.O. C. is the significance of to establish a relatively complete modern charitable legal system, and stimulated charity, and promote the transformation of Chinese charity from traditional to modern. Of course, there were limitations in those philanthropy laws such as imbalance architecture, the lower level legislature and undesirable result. The experiences and lessons had important implications for today's society philanthropy legislation.