First topic that is still confusing is how the Gold Card and NHI work together. I actually visited the NHI office today and was rejected. They told me that since I had no employer (my Gold Card category is a “freelancer”), I have a six month waiting period before I can apply. However, on the NIA link, https://www.immigration.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=1346583&ctNode=29991&mp=2 it clearly states that “According to the NIA, the benefits to the cardholder of the Employment Gold Card are… participating in National Health Insurance as insured persons without being subject to the requirement of a full six months of residence in the state”.
Furthermore, the NHI people told me that I am only permitted one trip abroad during that six month waiting period or the ticking clock resets. This provision totally blindsided me, as I had not heard or read anything about it in any of my research.
My initial guess is the NHI people are working from out-dated directives that precede the Gold Card and that it is going to take some liaison with NIA people to make this work out.
The NHI people kept going back to the six-month waiting period provision because I did not have an employer of record yet in Taiwan. The deal is, though, that as a freelancer, I will never have “an employer of record” in the traditional sense of the word - and I could tell that the staff at NHI was not really grasping my attempts to explain the concept.
Additionally, as a freelance performer, I am not very happy about the single entry provision, especially when the Gold Card explicitly guarantees a multi-entry visa. It is not that unusual that an opportunity comes up to be hired onto a job that shoots a few weeks in Taiwan and then proceeds to another few weeks in Thailand, Japan, etc. Why should I be penalized if I need to travel for work - or for that matter, if I want to travel to Hong Kong one weekend a month to shop or to Tokyo to visit a friend?