Gold Card from own company opened in Taiwan?

Business Entrepreneurship
1

Here is a question I have been thinking about.

If I opened my own company in Taiwan in the Fintech field (as a consultant) and paid myself over $160K NT$ per month, would I qualify for a Gold Card based on that?

Just curious really.

2

if you do all to a T, that is local TW company, so opening also NHI insured unit, labour insurance and whatnot and issuing local payroll paid from the own TW account of the company to your personal TW account in NTD, then it’s fine.

Remember to issue payslips to be all above board. you will be of course required to pay company tax for the company and personal income tax for yourself, besides the insurances mentioned above. Best to have an accountant here helping for the first periods.

3

Yes, but maybe not in the Finance category - since they generally want to see organisations recognised by the FSC. Choose some Business Items that fall under MOEA and you might be better…

4

Thanks @fifieldt !

It is not something I am really thinking of doing right now, but if nothing else works out, then maybe.

5

Yes but actual cost to execute this plan will be much more than NT$160k/month. Maybe 50% more.

6

If you have a good GC category and are just needing to meet the income requirement there’s no rules about the source of the income, it just needs to be documented.

I.e. if you’re doing remote work and getting consulting fees in another country or something, just be sure to report the income (in Taiwan or USA or wherever) so you have the paper trail and then they can tick that off for your application and you should be fine.

7

This doesn’t make much sense to me. How do you do the math for this?

Company setup: Maybe NT$60-80K

Capital:$500K NT$ (but used to pay income to myself, so not really a lost expense)

Ongoing cost of accountant: $2-4K NT$per month

Office space: 4K NT$ per month(not so sure on this one).

There are also taxes and NHI costs, but you have to pay those anyways, so I don’t feel the need to include those.

So, to do the math:

  1. Set up: 80K NT$

  2. Office and accountant: $8K*12= 96K NT$

Total: 176K NT$ for the expenses for the year. Round up to $200K for the year. That is around $6350 USD, or 8800 CAD$.

And it is not like I wouldnt be working to off-set those expenses.So it seems like an ok price to pay for a gold card and to have working flexibility.Even at 10K USD it seems like a reasonable price.

And once I have the gold card, I could close the business after the first year if it is just me.

So I do not see where you get those numbers from. Please enlighten me. Am I totally wrong on expenses?

8

How long have you been in Tw? Should defo consider the APRC. If you are already on another ARC here and you had to give the police certificate, then shouldn’t need to give again that unless u stay out of the country for more than 3 months at one time

9

Well …. If they gave cumulative time in Taiwan, I would be around 10 years or so. But this time I am back at ground zero. We are arriving in August and starting from scratch. Thus my questions about Gold cards and visas through establishing a visa.

10

then I suggest: keep the whole set up for 3 years, then up to 4 months before expiration, reapply for a GC. get the new one, wait the 3 yrs mark, then apply for APRC. get approved, then can dismantle everything

11

Thanks for the ideas. Currently I am applying to a bunch of higher paying corporate jobs. We will see how they pan out.

Oh yeah, we have decided on Taipei now (Donghu actually, which we really like). It is much easier to find decent jobs in Taipei outside of the English teaching realm.

12

as long as they are not in finance haha

13

I feel like… by the time all is said and done, you’ll already be on an APRC.

14

No surprise. , there’s almost no corporate or government dept jobs outside of Taipei and Hsinchu in Taiwan. Some jobs related to windpower in Taichung but generally would want that background.

Also even in Taipei most tech jobs are in Neihu and Nangang. Donghu is a good spot but something tells me your plans could change again in the meantime :grin:. Potential areas you could check are defense related, drone companies? I think Taiwan has some projects in those areas looking to export.

It’s also not that easy to find a GOOD job but that could apply in many places too of course. With your Chinese ability and background you probably will have better success.

15

My field of expertise has expanded in the last 2 years. I have been employed by a provincial government to investigate allegations of wrongdoing with government and crown corporation employees. This required extensive understanding and research of relevant laws, policy, and procedures (especially HR), as well as interviews and investigative work. That combined with my previous 11 years in investigations and law, policy, and regulation, shall we say, “navigation” of these. Currently I am looking into Ethics and Compliance type roles in Taiwan, in various industries (although apparently biotechnology has a significant need for this role in Taiwan).

We will see how it goes. Thanks everyone for the support.

16

Haha I deal with compliance officers sometimes, pain in the arse lol. They are required n the pharmaceutical and medical field and also probably defense procurement and other fields but I don’t know much about that.