公益信託及其課稅— 以英國、美國、日本法為中心

Abstract

本文係以公益信託作為研究對象，同時輔以英國、美國以及日本之制度規範作為比較對象，自公益信託之意義出發，接續公益信託管理、監督制度，並探討關於公益信託稅捐優惠之規範，最後則為公益信託終了之相關規範，以檢討我國公益信託法制不足之處，並提出建議。 依我國信託法第69條，公益信託即以慈善、文化、學術、技藝、宗教、祭祀或其他以公共利益為目的之信託，其制度目的係希望借重民間個人或團體之力量，補足政府之不足，以促進公益，然自我國信託法制定以來已逾20多年，期間並未就公益信託部分有過修正，我國法律關於何謂所謂公益亦無詳細之規範，從而本文第二章自公益之定義出發，於比較他國之規範後，提出我國應為之修正﹔第三章則針對公益信託之成立以及監督進行討論，因公益信託之管理機關於各國亦有不同，從而於公益信託之成立部分將同時涉及主管機關之討論，而公益信託之管理與運作則主要由受託人負責，故此處將著重於是否應針對公益之特質為調整﹔第四章則為公益信託之稅制，將針對較為重要之所得稅、遺產及贈與稅部分進行討論，同時檢視我國稅制與他國稅制不同之處，以修正不合理之規範﹔第五章公益信託之終了部分，則主要針對近似原則於我國之適用，並針對我國信託法第79條提出建議﹔最後於第六章統整本文之見解，並提出具體之修法建議，期待解決公益信託制度現有之問題外，亦得使公益信託更符合其制度設立之本旨。

This thesis takes charitable trusts as the abject of study, supplemented by the institutional regulations of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan as comparisons. It starts from the meaning of charitable trusts, follows the management and supervision system of public benefit trusts, explores the taxation public benefit trusts, and then ends with the termination of charitable trusts, to figure out the inadequacies of current regulations of charitable trusts, meanwhile, to restructure the existing system. According to Article 69 of the Trust Law, charitable trusts are trusts established for charitable, cultural, academic, technical, religious, ritual, or other purposes in the public interest. The purpose of charitable trusts is to promote the public benefit by leveraging the power of private individuals or organizations to supplement the government's deficiencies. However, it has been more than 20 years since the enactment of the Trust Law, and there has been no amendment to the section of charitable trusts during this period. Thus, the second chapter of this thesis discusses about the definition of public benefit, after comparing the regulations of other countries, the chapter proposes amendments that should be adopted in our country by the current circumstance. Chapter 3 discusses the establishment and supervision of charitable trusts, as the management authorities of charitable trusts differs from country to country, the establishment of charitable trusts will therefore be discussed with the management authorities. Additionally, the management and operation of charitable trusts are mainly the responsibility of the trustees, so this part will focus on whether the adjustment should be made to the characteristics of public benefit. Chapter 4 discusses the tax concessions of charitable trusts, and the point will be on income tax, estate and gift tax, and examining the differences between our taxation system and those of other countries in order to correct unreasonable regulations. Chapter 5, the termination of charitable trusts, focuses on the application of the Cy-près doctrine and makes recommendations on Article 79 of the Trust Law. Finally, in Chapter 6, views of this thesis will be consolidated, and based on this views, specific amendments to the law will be proposed to solve the existing problems of charitable trusts and to make it more consistent with the original purpose of its establishment.