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The insurance system has the function of dispersing the risks of individual economic units such as individuals, families, and enterprises, so that their economic life will not cause economic dilemma due to accidents, and thus achieve economic stability of the overall society. Although my country has social security systems such as national health insurance, labor insurance, farmer health insurance, government employees & teachers insurance, insurance for military personnel, national pension and other social insurance, and social assistance, there are also quite a number of social welfare organizations engaged in social welfare activities. However, the aforementioned social insurance is still inadequate for the economic security of citizens. To make up for the insufficiency of the social security system, my country provides tax incentives for commercial insurance, such as insurance premiums that can be deducted from the total income. Among them, paragraph 9 of Article 16 of the Estate and Gift Tax Act also stipulates that insurance payments of the death to the designated beneficiary can be exclused from the gross estate.
Due to there is no limit to the tax exemption in in Article 16 Section 9 of the Estate and Gift Tax Law, it has become a popular way for the rich to taxation plan. They even use a lump sum payment of insurance premiums, elderly, sick, short-term, huge amounts, intensive, and borrowing and other unusual insurance methods to to reduce the tax burden. However, payments of such abnormal insurance cases are often included in the taxation of the total estate by the taxation authority based on the principle of substantive taxation, and then litigation occurs. Also, because the statutory requirements for the general prevention regulations of tax evasion are too abstract, it has been doubted by outsiders that the judgment of tax evasion is generally subjective. Even though the tax collection law of our country stipulates general prevention provisions for tax evasion, but such disputes have not been completely resolved until today.
This article based on the legal relationship of insurance contracts and the current provisions of the Insurance Act, researched out that the beneficiary’s insurance benefits are obtained by insurance contracts without charge, it is not part of the estate. And its economic essence is similar to gift. Furthermore, find out Article 16, Section 9 of the Estate and Gift Tax Act is not a tax incentives provision, and there is a legal loophole in the Estate and Gift Tax Act, which enables the decedent to to take advantage of this legal loophole to avoid the tax. In addition, through a practical review of tax avoidance cases of death insurance, it is found that the relevant agency use the principle of substantive taxation to tax death insurance benefits is complicated due to the abstraction of legal requirements, and it is difficult to deal with endless tax avoidance cases. In order to implement the principles of fairness in taxation and statutory taxation, and eliminate disputes between the taxing parties, this article proposes to establish special prevention regulations for this type of tax avoidance cases, so as to fundamentally resolve such disputes of tax avoidance. |