Civil servants should respect the rights of taxpayers, says an
article in the website of People's Daily. The following is
an excerpt:
In a bill submitted to the Yunnan provincial committee of the
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, committee
member Yuan Ye suggested that civil servants in Yunnan should learn
to respect taxpayers. This is heartening news.
Taxes are a country's lifeline, connecting every citizen to the
State. As economist Mao Yushi wrote in an article entitled "No
reason to evade taxes": "Westerners regard death and taxes as two
unavoidable things in the life of a man."
As citizens, it is obvious that we must pay taxes. Meanwhile,
civil servants also need to respect taxpayers. Why? Civil servants
get their income from financial revenues and financial revenues are
generated by taxpayers.
Unfortunately, not every taxpayer gets his just desserts after
fulfilling his duty.
Some observers have complained that paying taxes is not really
one of our society's values. One reason why is that some civil
servants seem to care little about serving taxpayers and show them
little respect.
It is worth noting that in some people's minds, the focus is
more on the duties of taxpayers than the rights they should enjoy.
This asymmetrical understanding is obviously unreasonable and
creates a negative influence. The widespread disregard of
taxpayers' rights has left many people unclear about the rights
afforded them by law. And some local governments also seem to be
unclear about where their right to collect taxes comes from and how
to use this right correctly. Some civil servants take tax payments
by citizens for granted and then neglect the services they should
render in return.
(China Daily February 18, 2008)