Hi all,
I recently had reason to look into how the tax benefit applies to people who aren’t ‘new’ to Taiwan. As a refresher - the benefit is: for the portion of your salary over NT $3 million, half of it can be excluded from income for your first three years. eg Salary NT $6 million, you only pay tax on NT $4.5 million.
Previously, I did confirm with the NIA that people who have stayed in Taiwan more than 3 consecutive years and then switch to a gold card definitely aren’t eligible for any tax benefits. However, could someone could get tax relief after receiving a gold card in their 2nd or 3rd year of residing in Taiwan for work?
Unfortunately, it seems that the answer is no - despite some information to the contrary coming up during the promotion events.
The relevant regulations are here: Regulations Governing Reduction and Exemption of Income Tax of Foreign Special Professionals - Article Content - Laws & Regulations Database of The Republic of China (Taiwan)
You can see in Article 3 that you need 3 ticks to be eligible:
- First time coming to work
- It’s special professional work
- No household registration (only applicable to ROC nationals) and not a tax resident for the prior 5 years
With the exception that:
“If a foreign special professional has been previously approved to reside in the R.O.C. before his/her employment engaged in the professional work in the R.O.C., and such approval is not given on the ground of his/her engagement in the professional work, he/she shall not be subject to the first-time approval requirement…”
(which is unclear – but probably means, someone who was here to study, or some other residence reason rather than a subtle difference between a “foreign professional” and a “foreign special professional”)
So, since people would likely pay taxes in their first or second year and would be here on a work permit, they fail on two of the requirements to get the special professional tax relief.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, immigration agent, etc and haven’t checked this with any kind of official. Get real advice and please don’t rely on this for tax planning 