There is definitely a ruling class here now. Theres not really a middle class, even Doctors and Lawyers here make peanuts compared to the cost of living. Most of the rich are property owners and don’t need to work but just pay slave wages to human robot workers that come out of a factory robot mandated educational system. Super low wages with no hope of retirement and super long hours. Importing even lower waged overseas workers. The big bosses keep all the profits because they feel they deserve everything. They also control the government and create policies to help themselves only at the expense of their fellow citizens. Though this is no different from most other countries in the world now, just on a smaller more advanced scale so its more obvious. Im definitely Against any form of equal wealth distribution but this has gone way too far in the opposite direction.
What does a general practitioner make here, out of curiosity?
General Practitioner Approx 140,000 NTD a month more or less.
A Cadiologist approx 200,000-300,000 a month
Brain Surgeon 250,000-500,000?
Nurse 30,000-45,000
People are needed at all walks of life. If someone is less intellectual they can fulfill other roles in society. Should that really be true that SE Asians are “dumber” then TAiwanese as you assert. Which I don’t subscribe to.
There are smart TAiwanese as there are ones dumber then rocks. Same for other races.
And just to throw in there for comparison. Here in California Nurses make 90 to 100,000 plus a year. Gen Practioners make in the neighborhood of 250,000 plus. Specialists make 500,000 to one mil plus/annum.
Dentists make 500,000/annum (a lot of them more, some less). Dental surgeons make one to two mil.
These are usd figures. Docs working for big hospital groups get less salary but their insurance is paid by the hospitals. Whereas those in private practice have to pay insurance that is 100,000/annum plus, often way plus.
Also there is personal tax which is for docs in excess of 40pct /annum in view of their high income.
Nurses 90,000 to 100,000?? You must be from San Francisco
Yup
I don’t recall the figures for doctors etc. in Canada, but incidentally there’s a kerfuffle there now about income splitting, because the government wants to ban it. The idea is that high income professionals like doctors divert income to family members, lowering their tax burden in the process.
Yup, enough room for them to be used and abused, but with the added benefit of getting rid of them at the end of their contract.
Well here in the USA it works like this:
Having a spouse is particularly useful in reducing income tax because the tax table for married versus
Single is quite a bit less up to a certain point
There is a deduction for having a spouse and for each child but the deductions are minor compared to the tax table being much less
And if you live in a state with no personal income tax then you don’t pay state tax which can be a good savings too
So going back to a Doc who makes say 400 a year
Take away 100 for malpractice insurance we get 300
Take away 40pct fed tax minus the 100 he can write off we get 180
State tax takes into account fed tax but probably another 30 gets taken for social security tax and Medicare tax and state tax and we end up with 150
Divided by 12 we get 12 five a month or about ntd
375000 per month
A tw doc that makes 400k usd or about 1 mil ntd per month is not totally unheard of and I believe he pays no malpractice and don’t docs pay no income tax?
So a tw doc could make more then he would in the USA
I know lawyers could expense offset their income through their businesses, maybe some docs do the same in Taiwan?
I would be surprised if they get away with not paying Income tax. Even soldiers and teachers now pay income tax (next time you see the freeloading pensioners protesting you can ask them how much income tax they paid thru their short lived careers).
I don’t really see the point comparing how much doctors make. The truth is doctors are often the highest earners in most countries, except for maybe poverty-stricken ones like Moldova or interns/residents.
Lawyer’s starting salary is about 50k to 60k a month (which is crap, though I’m not sure how that compares to other countries as it seems like such confidential information, I could barely find any online. I don’t doubt that it’s much higher in America. I once heard from a Japanese exchange student that in Japan the starting salary for rookie lawyers is around 250k yen … which sounds good if yen goes back to 1:2.5 
), if you’re a good lawyer of course it could go up to like 15k per hour, or in some cases you can ask for contingence fee and get 2 million for a case, but if you suck then your money would suck. There’s no point comparing these professions as the disparities of income could be really large everywhere (though obviously American lawyers would perhaps make by far the most everywhere as sueing people seems like drinking water there.)
BTW, You’re not calculating income tax right.
40% Tax bracket doesn’t mean you pay 40% on your entire income. It works like this, assume he is head of household making 400k you said minus 100K for insurance and we go off 300k then
2016 US Federal Tax rate Head of household
10% $0 to $13,250 = $1,325.
15% $13,251 to $50,400. = $7,560.
25% $50,401 to 130,150 = 32,537.50
28% $130,151 to 210,800= 59,024.
33% $210,801 to 413,350 = 29,435.67 (300,00-210,801) X 33%= 29,435.67
1,325+ 7,560+ 32,537.50 + 59,024+ 29,435.67= $77,000 (rounding up)
300k taxable is $77,000 not $120,000 (40% of 300,000)
They pay 33% not on their entire Income but only on the income from 210,801 to 300,000. For each income below this they pay the % within that bracket.
Read more: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-brackets.aspx#ixzz4xilo3I2t
Taiwan Doctors make peanuts. Its not like it was 30 years ago they would have made closer to the 400k USD you claim. These were the pre National Health insurance days when things were paid Cash and all private practices. Unless of course were talking about top Plastic Surgeons with their own very successful practice…then they might make $500,000 USD
A brain surgeon in Taiwan makes roughly 400-600k NTD a month
A Cardiologist in Taiwan makes roughly 250k-350 NTD a month.
A GP at a big hospital makes roughly 120k-160k NTD
Don’t forget we pay federal tax and California tax for those who live in California
And then we have social security tax and Medicare tax
That all adds up !!
Yup in Taiwan a worker also pays a social security tax and medicare its not called that but essentially the same thing and the %s are comparable to what I used to pay for 15 years working in CA. All gets deducted from the paycheck. The only thing I don’t pay here in Taiwan vs me living back in CA is CA State Income Tax which is a lot…like $250 a month…
Having said that the income Tax bracket in Taiwan that I pay is actually higher than US Federal income tax by roughly 2%
Here is the solution 
Only in America do doctors make hundreds of thousands of USD, or multimillion, per month. Doctors everywhere else are (relatively) well-paid, but not millionaires. And how do they make that much? Because they charge an arm and a leg. The exuberant income of American physicians translates to a notoriously unaffordable healthcare system, aka one of the most dividing issues in an already divided society.
Best of all, they’re fellow Asians, not those pesky Westerners. And after a few generations of interbreeding, the SEA will be washed out of them and they’ll just be ordinary Taiwanese. Win win win!
It can happen to anyone. But yes, cultural currency is a thing…