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)