Tax dodgers on the Chinese mainland paid 36.7 billion yuan (4.4 billion US dollars) last year in what might have been lost tax revenue due to the country's tax authorities' crackdown on tax evasion, according to tax officials.

Liu Taiming, director of the Inspection Bureau of the State Administration of Taxation, told the press Tuesday the 36.7 billion yuan include taxes evaded but later paid by the tax dodgers, and fines imposed by tax departments for tax evasion and late fees.

Tax departments across China launched tax inspection operations last year among 1.23 million tax payers to make sure they paid their due taxes, said the official.

Tax inspection departments at and above the county level dealt with 523,000 cases involving various types of tax-related offenses in the same year.

Tax frauds involving value-added taxes remain the dominant part of those offenses, said the official.

The tax official said China will continue to crack down on tax evasion and fraud in 2005.

The authorities made public 10 major tax fraud cases on Tuesday, mostly of falsification of value-added tax and tax evasion.