180 (3?) day rule

Dear All,
We have a teacher who has just been refused a tax refund because of the 180 day rule. This person works in Taipei and is 11 days short of 180 days. This came about because illness forced the teacher to leave Taiwan for a month, for an operation and convalescence in the home country. Is it possible to claim extenuating circumstances here? The teacher has all the necessary medical records if they need to be presented.

The clerk in the tax office just pointed to the rule, but you’d expect them to quote this standard. If it is possible to claim back tax because of these circumstances, how should the teacher go about it?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Chris

Extenuating circumstances on a tax-related matter? Are you kidding?

[quote=“C.J.Smith”]Dear All,
We have a teacher who has just been refused a tax refund because of the 180 day rule. This person works in Taipei and is 11 days short of 180 days. This came about because illness forced the teacher to leave Taiwan for a month, for an operation and convalescence in the home country. Is it possible to claim extenuating circumstances here? The teacher has all the necessary medical records if they need to be presented.

The clerk in the tax office just pointed to the rule, but you’d expect them to quote this standard. If it is possible to claim back tax because of these circumstances, how should the teacher go about it?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Chris[/quote]

Don’t know what you could do, but just alerting you to the fact that it is possiblle to still pay a rate of tax for the period between 90 and 180 days, which might benefit a person in a double taxation avoidance agreement (such as between ROC and Australia).

It is a 183 day rule (1/2 of a 365-day calendar year) so your teacher is actually short by 14 days, not 11. I doubt that they will make an exception. It’s a tax office, not the Red Cross, so the situation for why matters little to them. Only that the person missed the limit.

There’s always next year.

Does the 183 day rule apply for people who have been working here for over a year already?

I have been here for nearly 6 years, but will be leaving at the end of June. Can I still apply for a refund, or would they go by the 183 day rule for tax purposes despite the fact that I have been here for a number of years?

Thanks!

I’m afraid that even if you’ve been here since the days of Ol’ Peanut Head, when you are here for fewer than 183 days of any year (meaning from January 1st until December 31st of a particular year), you do not qualify for the tax rate reduction. :s

I will be leaving the first week of July which would put me at the required 183 days, but I went on a 2-week holiday to Thailand during Chinese New Year…would that technically count against the total days spent here this year?