Discussions on Tax-Exemption of Taiwan’s Non-Profit Organizations Based on Diverse Perspectives

Abstract

Taiwan’s non-profit organizations (NPOs) have flourished in various service fields and become a third party of concatenation with government and business community. Numerous NPOs involve their activities in cross-organizational cooperation with the governments and the private enterprises, and take important roles and functions in our modern society. However, because of the fierce competitions in market and the rapid social changes, NPOs are facing the same management issues with profit making organizations, such as financial difficulties or lack of resources. Therefore, this study aims to discuss whether or not NPOs should be granted the benefit of tax-free or tax-exemption based on diverse perspectives, such as subsidy argument, organization’s public welfare and nature based on donatives theory, viewpoint of defining, measuring and assessing tax base, altruism theory and sovereignty theory. This study combines the interview and questionnaires to explore the issue on NPO management. A total of participants are 395 interviewees and amongst them, only 180 respondents have filled out the valid questionnaires. In our conclusion, we find that people mostly agree the NPO’s taxexemption, and however, the degree of participants’ approval for donors’ income and inheritance tax-relief is more than the degree of the NPOs itself. JEL classification numbers: A10, D71, H51. Keywords: Non-profit organization, Public welfare, Tax-exemption, Donation.