The names of 18 companies accused of evading tax payment were published Tuesday by the taxation authority of Guangzhou, capital city of south China's Guangdong Province, on its official website.
The 18 companies have evaded up to 110.92 million yuan (US$1.34 million) in taxes. A real estate company named Huinan, the largest of the 18, owes 55.25 million yuan (6.7 million US dollars) to the government.
The new rules on the supervision and administration of tax collection took effect in China Tuesday, replacing the old version issued nine years ago.
The new rules impose much more rigid punishment on tax evasion and also include more measures to improve tax collection supervision and administration.
The 18 companies were the first group of tax dodgers exposed to the public by the municipal government since a new law on taxation was implemented in May last year.
The website publicized the name and legal representative of each company as well as the amount of tax they had evaded.
The taxation authority has vowed to regularly make tax dodgers public in a bid to force them to pay taxes punctually.
( October 16, 2002)
