I’m confused whether or not I need to submit a tax return for some earnings from 2020. Background:
I left Taiwan in August 2019 to go work an IT job in China, and returned to Taiwan in September 2020. Whilst I was looking for a new job in the IT field in Taiwan I took a teaching job for a few months but am now back working as an engineer. I started my new IT job in 2021 so I don’t think I need to worry about a tax return for this job until next year. But what about the 1 month of teaching I did in 2020? Do I need to go and submit a tax return for those earnings?
Why is it that none of my Taiwanese friends and colleagues seem to need to do this?
If so, how easy is it to do online? Do I need a card reader or a digital citizen certificate? Do i need to install some crappy Taiwanese software? Locally on my personal machines I only have Mac OS and Linux. Can I do it online if I wish to submit together with my wife for those benefits?
Also, I definitely didn’t submit a tax return in 2020 for my 2019 earnings as I wasn’t in Taiwan in May 2020, but I was never contacted about it, maybe because I only worked in Taiwan for half of 2019 and didn’t meet the earnings requirement to pay any tax considering 5% was already being deducted from my salary. In fact, the tax bureau may owe me money.
Any advice is welcomed. I’d rather not go to the tax office due to COVID and not wanting to use one of my annual leave days.
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Since you haven’t filed for 2019 yet and need to, filing for 2020 might be a good way to start down the path of fixing that. Waiting until next year will just increase the potential fines/interest you may have to pay.
There’s a web version that will work on Linux, but you might want to go into the office instead, to talk about your late filing with empathetic humans 
When you file for 2020 you may be asked to provide your 2019 return. The tax office knows how many days you were in Taiwan, and particularly if it was more than 183 days it’s easy to flag. Since you don’t have it, they’d help you file that too.
It’s closed at the moment. The tax filing deadline has been extended to June 30 so people don’t need to go during covid 
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That’s good to know. I guess they’ll keep extending the deadline until the office re-opens.
What is the late fine for submitting a tax return?
The penalties I could find are based on how much tax was owed, so it sounds like it could be a very small amount for you 
Penalties-National Taxation Bureau of Taipei
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Perfect! If anything they owe me money, which I suspect is why they haven’t contacted me!
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The tax office is very slow to contact people about overdue taxes (if they even try at all).
It’s better to go talk to them in person (when they re-open). In person they are much more accommodating about waiving late filing penalties, but not interest due on payments (if it turns out you own back taxes).
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