the concept seems to not exist here.
how do people save for retirement ?
Private funds
Private investments
Laobao?
Invest in mutual funds?
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Local plans.
Or real estate. If you have your own home plus laobao and a rental, you’re set.
You give your to your oldest son. Live upstairs in the grandparents room.
At least that’s how father in-law did it.
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to get your own home+rental you need close to 2 million usd in taipei 
with that amount of money I wouldn’t worry about retirement, I could probably retire anywhere in the world.
what are these local plans called in Chinese ? are they annuities ? or whole life insurance ?
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More like half that. You can get a decent property in Taipei for 15 million TWD, 10 million in New Taipei, or about 8 million in Taoyuan. Go down south and property is very affordable.
Invest! This is what most Americans do, too, unless we want to live on our (small) social security checks.
I don’t think so. Even in Xindian a decent property is 15 million plus.
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Guess depends what you mean by decent.
I’m talking about a 2 bedroom apartment in an oldish building with no elevator. That is decent to me.
Not a rotten old gongyu anyway.
There are non rotten old gongyus.
Almost all are old and majority aren’t in good shape or nice . They cost a fortune because of the land price.
You can buy one and pay a lot to fix them up as well. The building may still be shit though.
All ramshackle fire hazards. Sure. Pretty “decent”. Why would you even pay to own there? Better to rent in modern buildings
Xindian that would be 15 million, unless you mean Ankeng or Wulai, then maybe 9 or 8 million.
Up in Pinglin maybe 6 million.
because of the land for gongyus.
I also know 2.5bd room apartments in 20-30 yr old apartments with elevators and they can go for up to 20 million. That’s what y last place I was renting was worth and it wasn’t great except the view.
I haven’t seen anything for 15 million, in which neighborhoods?
The return on rental property is quite low, i think that a 15 million apartment probably rents out for 15K-18K , not the biggest of incomes to support retirement .
yes, but whereas in my home country there are plenty of options (IRA, 401k, annuities, target date funds etc.) here I was only able to find whole life insurance policies (which isn’t what I’m looking for).
since I will be here long term, I’m looking for good, tax efficient, low fee options to save for retirement.
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All the Americans I know in Taiwan invest primarily in those types of accounts back home.
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It’s a good question, as a long-term resident I didn’t find any good local options either. I don’t think there are any schemes where you can make pension deductions in advance of tax here. You can pay the Lao Bao premium up to a certain rate I believe.
I focus on optimising my tax (you can claim overseas dependents and also your in-laws in a joint filing) and then invest with a mix of overseas and local investments (to balance out the risk , mostly overseas though , also hold in different currencies ). There is some mortgage interest relief in the tax code as well .
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