(Clearwisdom.net) A Falun Gong practitioner, whom we will refer to as Cee, lives in a small town in Liaoning, China, and runs a privately owned business. His wife also practices.
Before he started to practice, Cee often fought with his wife. However, after he started to practice Falun Gong, Cee and his wife no longer fought and his business also improved. Cee's home grew more harmonious and became a local exercise site and a place for practitioners to gather to study the principles of Falun Dafa. After Cee started to practice Falun Gong, he no longer avoided or tried to dodge paying his taxes at the local tax bureau. In fact, he started to pay his taxes on his own initiative. The government employee at the tax bureau was very appreciative of Cee's efforts and said to him, "You can stop paying taxes for two months while you are still working." When the time came for the next installment of tax payments, Cee handed over the money due to the tax bureau. The tax official was extremely surprised. Cee said, "Thank you for your offer to try and help me. But I practice Falun Dafa, and my Teacher (1) teaches us that we should always hold ourselves to the standard of 'Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance.' I cannot avoid paying taxes for my country. " Although the tax bureau employee did not say anything at that time, later he commented, "We should all learn from Falun Gong practitioners."
After the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20, 1999, Cee was detained and abducted to a brainwashing center on several occasions. Although Cee and his wife were persecuted, they still insisted on following "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance." In spite of being illegally detained and sent to the brainwashing center, they still paid their taxes to the tax bureau. In order to commend and encourage the owners of privately owned business to pay their taxes, the tax bureau decided to reward those who made outstanding efforts towards paying their taxes. Those who met the standard would have their taxes remitted for one year. The director of the tax bureau found Cee and said, "We want to reward you for meeting the standard from our area." Cee said, "Thank you for your thoughts, but we practice Falun Gong and we wish to pay our taxes that we owe and contribute towards our country. You can offer this to someone else." The director of the tax bureau said, "You have been practicing Falun Gong over the past years, which has meant a lot of suffering because of the persecution. You should accept this honor!"
Note:
1. Teacher -- Respectfully referring to the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi
September, 10, 2004
