Is the deadline for application for tax deferrals prescribed by Article 42 of the Enforcement Rules of the Act for Upgrading Industries in contravention either to the enabling statute or to the Constitution?　

　　　 In J. Y. Interpret-ation 514, we have held that people’s freedom to operate a business falls under the constitutional guarantees of people’s right of work and property rights.　According to Article 23 of the Constitution, any restriction or limitation imposed by the state on people’s freedom and rights shall only be enacting laws and shall not exceed the degree of necessity.　To facilitate the implementation of law, the law may confer on the agency-in-charge general authorization to promulgate a supplementary regulation; however, the supplementary regulation shall be consistent with and shall not exceed the enabling statute.　We have repeatedly held that the standard for determining whether a given regulation promulgated by an administrative agency under the general authorization of an enabling statute exceeds its statutory authorization and hence such administrative agency shall take into account the legislative intent and the correlative meanings of the entire body of regulations and shall not be restrained by the statutory language.

　　　 Article 16, Subparagraph 3, of the Act for Upgrading Industries, enacted and implemented on December 29, 1990, prescribes that the newly issued registered shares received by shareholders due to a corporation’s reinvesting its undistributed earnings in significant businesses such as those delineated in Article 8 of the same Act are exempted from being accounted as part of individual shareholders?consolidated incomes; those newly issued registered shares are also exempted from being accounted as part of business incomes of the same fiscal year for the tax purpose when the recipient shareholders are themselves corporations.　Its legislative intent is to facilitate corporate capital-raising by allowing the corporation to use its undistributed earnings as corporate capital increase to strengthen its financial structure.　To accomplish such a goal, the law serves as an incentive to gain shareholders?approval by allowing them tax deferrals on the newly issued registered shares received by them due to the corporation’s reinvesting its undistributed earnings. (See Articles 13, 240 and 241 of the Company Act)　The corporation’s use of its undistributed earnings as its capital increase, the shareholders?approval, and the incentives provided by the law all constitute important elements of corporate property rights and the freedom to operate a business as they may affect the way a corporation raises capital, its financial structure, operation, and development.　However, whether shareholders?stock dividends resulting from a given corporation’s capital increase are qualified for tax deferrals shall be left to the agency-in-charge to determine in accordance with factual circumstances.　In order to enforce the abovementioned statute, on September 24, 1997, the agency-in-charge amended and implemented Article 42 of the Enforcement Rules of the Act for Upgrading Industries (hereinafter the Enforcement Rules?, prescribing that, Any corporation which uses its undistributed earnings as its capital increase and reinvests them in a significant business such as those delineated in Article 8 of the same Act shall, within six months after the governing authority in charge of corporate registry approves the capital increase, submit the following documents to the competent taxing authority to apply for the exemption excluding the shareholders?stock divi-dends, which come from the capital increase owing to the reinvestment, from income taxes of the same fiscal year: (a) A letter of approval issued by the central governing agency in charge of relevant business stating that the reinvested business qualifies as a significant business; (b) Copies of licenses of stock corporation registrations and of shareholders?lists issued before and after the corporate capital increase; (no shareholders?list is needed if the corporate applicant is a listed corporation); (c) The minutes of shareholders?meetings [including details of the source(s) and the use(s) of the fund of capital increase]; (d) A sample of its stock certified or authenticated by a competent certifying institution and documents of such certification or authentication; and (e) Relevant reinvestment documents (Paragraph 1).　Any corporation which fails to meet the deadline provided in the previous paragraph may still submit an application stating the reason for the delay before the deadline expires; however, it shall submit all required documents within six months starting from the day after the expiration of the deadline (Paragraph 2).?The paragraphs of Article 42 cited above were promulgated under the statutory authorization of Article 43 of the Act for Upgrading Industries to enforce related tax deferral matters as prescribed by Article 16, Paragraph 3, of the same Act.　Taking into account the fact that relevant tax deferral application materials are mostly in the possession of the corporation itself, the which requires the corporation of its own accord to submit such relevant application materials under Article 42 of the Enforcement Rules is consistent with the above stated legislative intent and with the meaning of the enabling statute.　With respect to the six-month requirement to submit the application, it a short period from the corporate applicant’s point of view, but it does not constitute a limitation on the content or the range of the application for the tax deferral.　Moreover, because the tax deferral will affect the state revenue and taxpayers?tax plans, it is not appropriate to set a longer period.　Furthermore, according to Article 42, corporate applicants who fail to meet the deadline may still submit their applications stating the reason(s) for the delay before the expiration of the six-month deadline and may receive a six-month extension.　Such an extension reflects the framers?taking into account the facts that it is not easy to obtain the letter of approval stating that the reinvested business is qualified as a significant business and it is necessary to coordinate corporate reinvestment with the capital increase of the reinvested significant business.　Namely, the extension is sufficient to ease the of the six-month deadline.　Therefore, after considering and evaluating the foregoing factors, we hold that the six-month requirement of Article 42 of the Enforcement Rules is necessary to enforce the enabling statute and relevant laws, is consistent with the legislative intent, and does not exceed the statutory authorization.　It is also not in contravention to the Constitution.

　　　 When a corporation reinvests its undistributed earnings in a significant business, whether shareholders?stock dividends issued due to the corporation’s capital increase are qualified for tax de-ferrals may affect its financial structure, operation, and development, may con-stitute important elements of corporate property rights and its freedom to operate business, and shall be protected by the Constitution.　The foregoing Article 42 of the Enforcement Rules, prescribing that a corporation’s application for tax deferrals can only be submitted within a required period of time, in fact materially and significantly affects a corporation’s freedom to utilize its property and operate its business.　In the present petition, the petitioner, according to law, applied for the tax deferral to the agency-in-charge in her own name, sought administrative and judicial remedies in her own name, filed a petition to the Judicial Yuan and appealed to us to interpret the Constitution because the petitioner thought that the relevant procedural requirement of applying for the benefit of tax deferrals as so applied by the court in its final and binding judgment limited her constitutionally protected property right and thus gave rise to the question of constitutionality.　The present petition was duly filed and is not in violation of Article 5, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 2, of the Constitutional Interpretation Procedure Act.　It shall also be noted that we do not hold on Article 47, Paragraph 3, of the Enforcement Rules of the Act for Upgrading Industries, as amended and implemented on November 15, 1995, as it was not applied by the court in the final and binding judgment on which the present petition is based.