A Study On The Composition Of The Crime Of Tax Avoiding

Tax policy was born with the born of sovereignty state and it can be concludedthat tax policy and sovereignty state are growing hand in hand. In Master Zuo’s Springand Autumn Annals (Zuo Zhuan), it was stated that taxation is the foundation for foodand for army; K. Max said that taxation is the economic foundation of the existence ofsovereignty state; O.W. Holmes, the great judge also mentioned:“Taxation is theprice that has paid for our civilized society.” So it is believed that tax is the majorsource for the fiscal income for any state and the major way of organizing fiscalincome by governments worldwide.Like two sides of any coins, tax and tax avoiding exist simultaneously for a longperiod of time. Tax avoiding is one of the serious crimes by any state as it is themajor causes of the decreased fiscal income for governments. The crime of taxavoiding has already been included in the first Criminal Law in China in1979. Theyet-to-be-detailed explanation of such crime has been interpreted and specified in thefollowing judicial clarification. It was stated clearly in Clause21for “The Crime ofTax Avoiding” in the Criminal Law in1997. Judicial clarifications are also observedto be added up in the following years. Over the past many years, it is widelyrecognized both of the content as well as the RMB10,000yuan for the minimumamount.In Item7of the Criminal Law (Amended) has changed the name of “the Crimeof Tax Avoiding” into “the Crime of the Tax Avoidance”. This indicates that the Crimeof Tax Avoiding has been deleted from the Criminal Law of China. Compared to theCrime of Tax Avoiding, the Crime of Tax Avoidance has a different name of crime andthere is no specification for the minimal amount of being sued. For those who commit such crimes for the first will be free from being sued after the administrativepunishment. The fundamental difference between “avoiding” and “avoidance” hasreflected the protection of taxpayers and tax collectors and this is also in match withthe economic development in China.Nevertheless, upon the establishment of the Crime of Tax Avoidance, we still seeissues in the areas of disputes of principal part, minimal amount, vague connections ofcriminal responsibilities, etc. The paper is targeting at providing observations andsuggestions for the principle body, starting amount of penalty, interconnectionbetween administrative penalty and criminal prosecution from the discussion of thecompositions of the Crime of Tax Avoidance so that improved interpretations can bemade to both the establishment of law and interpretations of certain laws.