Foreign Teacher or Taiwan Resident Pay?

I was just offered an English teaching position at a chain school. Because I have dual citizenship (Taiwan and US) and that I’m trying to avoid military conscription here, the school offered to get me ARC with work permit if I come into the country using my American passport. However, they will not pay me a foreign teacher’s pay of around 630/hour. They said because of their company policy for situations like mine, they are only paying Taiwan resident’s pay of 430/hour but they’re still bound by the foreign teacher’s laws of scheduling no less than 14 hours a week for me. Has anyone had any experience with this? Is this legal? What about taxes…am I paying foreigner’s tax rate or resident rate?

Thanks in advance.

No one has similar experiences?

No.

However, it is supposed to be illegal for an ROC citizen to obtain Alien Residency. I say “supposed to be” because I know of many such individuals.

As for the tax issue, if you’re starting work after 183 days of the year have passed, and you’ve entered Taiwan on a foreign passport, then you’ll be paying non-resident tax rates. The wording of the law means that the non-resident tax rate SHOULD apply to locals as well, but I’ve never heard of the tax office checking residency on ROC citizens so if you want to avoid the foreign tax, don’t leave and come back in on your foreign passport.

As for your would-be employer, he sounds like a total shitbag and you’d be well-served by telling him to go fuck himself, telling him why he should go fuck himself, and finding something else.

A good school pays the same rate for the same job, regardless of what passport the teacher holds. If they don’t, there’s probably lots of other things that they also don’t do that they should.

The reality is that it is tough to find jobs as an ABC that pay foreign teacher pay. I have heard that chain schools were better about hiring ABC’s but I wasn’t aware that they were paying such a significant gap in pay. I would not have been surprised at all at 50NT less/hr but 200/hr is a lot.

Are you being hired to be a co-teacher or will you be in the same role as a foreigner? Most chain schools split the teaching duties between a foreign and local teacher. There isn’t actually less work as a local teacher (probably more) but very few local teachers get the same pay.

As for the withholding tax and min required hours you will probably be treated like a foreigner since they would need to get you an ARC to avoid military conscription.

The job posting advertised foreign teacher so I applied as such. I didn’t know foreign teachers are paired with local teachers. I’ll have to get the specifics when we meet.

I would like to tell them to go fuck themselves but I have a family to support so I’ll be taking this job as is for a year and hopefully meet some people to get non-teaching jobs that pay better or poach their students.

Thanks for everyone’s input.

You might have applied for a foreign teaching position but that doesn’t mean that you will be in that role. Or you might be in the foreign teacher role. Not all schools do this though.

It sucks but it might take you a long time to find something better so I wouldn’t fault you for taking the job. And there is nothing that prevents you from accepting a better job before your contract is up (as long as you provide adequate notice). But this is another example of why an ABC (especially Taiwanese) shouldn’t come to Taiwan to teach English unless they really, really want to.