Paragraph 1, Article 21, of the Taxpayer Rights Protection Act promulgated on December 28,2017 (hereinafter, the "Act") provides that in the case where a taxpayer is dissatisfied with a tax assessment disposition and files an administrative litigation, during the administrative litigation, he/she may amend or add claims against the illegal tax assessment disposition. However, does this provision apply to cases pending prior to the promulgation of the Act? Also, to lessen litigation burdens on the taxpayers, Paragraph 3 of the same provides that the Administrative Court shall produce evidence to verify taxpayers’ tax payable and render a decision on its own. Yet, for evidence relating to the taxpayer's tax payable which the taxpayer has not produced, should the Administrative Court investigate ex officio? With respect to these questions, the Supreme Administrative Court has now answered them one by one as the Act has been implemented now for almost a year.

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With respect to the first question, the Supreme Administrative Court answered it positively in its judgment 107-Pan-Zi No. 455. We have summarized its reasons below:

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1. New procedure

Paragraph 1 of Article 21 of the Act is a procedural provision. It is only meant to ensure the progression of the procedure of confirming the legal relationships among substantive matters, and does not confirm any relationships of rights or obligations; neither does it change the order of any procedures. To ensure that such procedural provision can be applied to all parties after the amendment, this amendment shall be applicable to pending cases based on the doctrine of retroactivity of procedural law.

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2. Applicability of provisions of a lesser order

Article 1-1 of the Tax Collection Act provides that where the effectiveness of the Reference Table for Fines and Multiples of Punishments have been changed by the Ministry of Finance, and if it is favorable to the taxpayer(s), the same shall be applicable to the case(s) pending final decision(s). Then Paragraph 1 of Article 21 of the Taxpayer Rights Protection Act, which is a law of a higher order than the Tax Collection Act, where it is favorable to the taxpayer, should be even more applicable to cases pending final decisions.

As for the second question, the Supreme Administrative Court also holds in the affirmative. Pursuant to Article 133 of the Administrative Procedure Act, the Administrative Court shall produce evidence ex officio for the purpose of protecting public interests with respect to litigation dismissal or other litigation matters. Since tax revocation is a matter of public interests, it is no exception. The Supreme Administrative Court's judgment 106-Pan-Zi No. 245 clearly stated the following with respect to ex officio dismissal of litigation: "Litigation dismissal shall be conducted ex officio and the parties bear no subjective burden of proof. However, where the court has investigated ex officio, yet the facts are still unclear, the objective burden of proof shall be distributed to determine the outcome of the litigation. And because of administrative litigation's protection of people's rights and control over administrative legality, the Administrative Court will consider all of the arguments and the results from the investigation, and conduct its fact-finding based on reasons and experience. In principle, evidence of high likelihood shall be obtained to clarify the facts."      

The Supreme Administrative Court further clarified in its judgment 107-Pan-Zi No. 138 that, based on Paragraphs 1 and 3 of Article 21 of the Act, the Administrative Court in a substantive trial of a tax litigation, with respect to the evidence for the amount of tax payable, even if the tax payer does not allege, shall still produce evidence ex officio to verify the taxpayer’s tax payable and assess the amount within the range of taxpayers' challenges.

The implementation of taxpayer protection depends not only on the enforcement of the law, but also on the timely and effective protection from the judicial system. And the judgments above are embodiments of taxpayers' rights protection by the Supreme Administrative Court.

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