Why do schools lie about our incomes on taxes?

This is a bit of a cross-post from one I have in the legal forum (viewtopic.php?f=70&t=84207) but I thought I could use some help from this side as well.

The very short story is that because my director lies, like almost every buxiban, and says that I make 30,000 per month on my taxes (when it’s truly double or more) I’m having issues getting my APRC and a proper maternity leave (and also because she hasn’t been paying my labor insurance but that’s the reason for the legal post). Here is what she’s what she’s feeding me re: my taxes at the moment:

[quote]1. Taxes==> I’m sure this is a “favor” for you guys. There is “NO ANY BENEFIT for buxiban” if we aplly low amount to the government.
But you guys saves taxes for more than NT$50,000 every year (NT$150,000 in 3 years)…The school got nothing.
(You can double check with any of your friend who knows about accounting , and please don’t say it’s our fault anymore. It’s not true.)
The salary is an “expense” for the school. If we have more expense, the school can pay “LESS” income taxes to the governemnt.
So, if you want us to apply “exactly same ammount of your salary” to the government, there is “no any problem” and I’ll be “very happy” to do so.
At the same time, please be understand, there are two impacts for you:

  1. you will have to pay taxes in next year, roughly maybe around NT$50K-70K for this year.
  2. your health insurance fee will raised from NT$250 to around NT$1,000 per month. (I’ll show you the table that defined by the government).[/quote]

Obviously I have a really hard time swallowing that all of these buxiban owners are just SO thoughtful and caring that they don’t want us poor foreigners to be crushed by overbearing weight of Taiwanese taxes :aiyo: … so what is the real reason? or list of reasons that this is standard practice? Obviously any and every school has the potential of getting into a lot of trouble for this so what are the perks for doing this?

:roflmao: Remember, the school needs to pay 60% of your health insurance. It’s amusing that your “director” didn’t mention that the school will need to pay a lot more money per month for your health insurance… Also, the school doesn’t want/won’t tell the tax office how many students, classrooms, teachers, etc. they really have. Everything that is “off the books” is tax free for them. The more money they declare, the more tax they need to pay. Who wants to be in a higher tax bracket and pay more taxes? Either your “director” is an idiot or he thinks his teachers are…

Well she definitely thinks we are dumb, that’s for sure.

That’s the part that doesn’t make sense. Our school has always been hanging on by a thread. This year we’re down to 3 english teachers and the largest class in the whole school is about 8 students I think. There are 3 or 4 Japanese teachers as well as a French and Spanish teacher but I’m pretty sure they all are here with student visas or via marriage.

The school is more of a hobby or a pet project for the director since she has a real job outside of it and we see her maybe twice a year now… I seriously doubt the school is making much of an income so it still doesn’t quite add up.

The director is the owner? I see…
It’s simple. The more income she needs to declare, the more taxes she needs to pay. This may move her in to a higher tax bracket where her tax % will increase. I guarantee she isn’t paying any taxes on the teachers with student or marriage arcs. The government doesn’t even know they are working there. Instead of telling the government she has 7 teachers and 100 students, she can just say that she has 3 teachers and 40 students. Instead of declaring her income of, let’s say, $3,000,000, she can declare only $1,000,000 and save a hell of a lot of money on taxes. Owners/directors believe that the foreign teachers are all ignorant of the facts and simply tell them that it is for the teachers’ benefit… :unamused:

In your other thread, Northcoast Surfer explained how the school could make money off your back by underdeclaring your taxes to the government and over-withholding them from the employees. I’ve seen this happen several times and since most foreigners don’t keep accurate records of their income and taxes, the schools can easily get away with it.

I left my first school for exactly that reason. :fume: