News No.   :  12/2008

Date          :  25 August 2008

Subject     : The Revenue Department clarifies its order to transfer the delinquent taxes.

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                         With respect to the ongoing news on the seizure of the taxpayers’ assets, the Revenue Department hereby makes a clarification. The Department has an obligation to seize asset from a delinquent taxpayer if he has tax arrears owed to the government. The Revenue Department must send a notice to every bank where the taxpayer has an account and order the bank to transfer the money to the Revenue Department. Thus, what has been mentioned in the news is the routine procedure of the Revenue Department in accordance with the Revenue Code. Therefore, by notifying the bank to transfer the money is NOT a release of the frozen assets to the taxpayers but a notification to transfer the frozen assets to make an enforced payment of the delinquent taxes plus penalty and surcharge. The Revenue Department must at once remit this money into the state treasury as government revenue. Hence, this is not returning the money to the taxpayers. If the Revenue Department ignores this procedure, it would be considered as negligence of duty.