At the time it simply wasn't possible. The Ministry of Commerce would point at the Ministry of Information who would say that newspapers don't need to pay taxes. This situation is similar to how some are being fined for not being in possession of work permits for years when there was no way to get one.Marmite wrote:What gets me is that instead of bleating about how unfair it is, the journalists should be asking the company owners and management WHY those taxes were deducted from their salaries and not paid to the tax authorities. Because that fraudulent activity - no, fuck it, let's call it what it is allegedly, theft - has now put their jobs at risk.
Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I understand it, the most recent version of the law requires a publishing outlet to pay taxes if it owns a printing press. Cambodia Daily had one donated to them and among other things the government has now estimated the value of that and added import taxes for it to the bill.
It's not incorrect to say that these laws are selectively enforced and apply retro-actively, but there is little that can be done about it. I'm with gavinmac on this, it will be interesting to see if the government actually delivers as promised or if they pull back like they did in the case against Kem Sokha.
I also hear that the fines only stretch 10 years back. There might be a statute of limitations in place. The total would possibly be three times as much as they've been demanded to pay had the fines gone back to 1993.
Bless