Well the fault is yours alone really. You short changed yourself. Simple pay yourself the salary required or look into the small business start up Marco mentioned.
Got denied gold card because of personal income requirements -> my company made over $150K in profit
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I thought they cancelled the income category?
Honestly having a really rich business and paying yourself only 20,000 a year looks like tax evasion to tax authorities.
Not a total failure per se, it helped many ppl, like myself (not a yankee), to come and join their significant others while maintaining their overseas remote jobs. We are contributing to the economy in general by paying the taxes here and with our consumption.
It falls short of the expectations on the quantity and generally the quality of applicants, but it helped to put TW on the map of immigration programmes.
Then most of the problem about retentions are not of the programme itself, but general TW situation (low pay, little time off, heinous bureaucracy, etc…)
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Not really, but put higher requirements, like not just the amount is enough, but also some additional restrictions
The income category was never canceled, the Economy field started checking the industry also.
All other fields have been loosened since their initial categories where announced.
A new field will also soon be announced (Digital Field):
The Economy field will also announce changes to its categories:
Additionally once the Culture and Arts field has finished the public feedback stage, they too will announce changes:
The trend seams to be since 2018, mainly relaxations in the fields.
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I have to agree with UnderArmor - I myself am considering just going back to China. Taiwan out of all countries should understand the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship to remain sovereign.
Not trying to sound like a spoiled brat but TW is competing in a global talent war - they can’t be pulling stunts like this. Look at how well Estonia is doing because they think things through.
I am sure there are solutions to my problem but in a sea of options, I am not going to bother and am sure there are hundreds/thousands of people like me.
I’m not sure taiwan wants to attract foreigners. It looks like they’re happy with attracting slave workers and English teachers. Gold card is a failure probably because it’s designed to be a failure.
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I agree - it’s a shame.
Thanks. I’ll consider it. There are just too many programs that I can just apply online - I’d like to live in Taiwan but not enough to go through a process that is more difficult than the other next 20 alternatives.
The process to set up a company was unbelievably easy. The CPA does the work for you.
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Please. You don’t have a business. So you do not know. It would behoove you to concentrate on starting a business then understanding how one operates. A business is not a person. I own a business. Guess what? I earn no income in Taiwan from my business even though I am the company owner. My wife is an employee and gets paid a salary. If you own a Taiwan company and open a branch office in HK, you can have overseas clients pay to the HK account. HK does not charge business tax on funds paid into HK from overseas. Taiwan allows one to bring in up to NT$6 million per year from overseas and pay little tax on funds. Also. HK does not recognize Taiwan. So banks in HK cannot share financial information to Taiwan government. Did you know I can earn some income from my company as dividends which to a certain amount are tax free?
If you want to confirm this visit a tax office in Taiwan.
Did you notice Elon Musk is not paid a salary from any of the businesses he owns?
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It just feels like you don’t wanna come tbh.
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Many CEO’s who own a lot of shares of same company work for a symbolic dollar salary.
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Rep Office is a route the OP should look into.
Yea, like Elon Musk…
It’s legal but that’s because most government likes giving rich people tax breaks.
Honestly don’t start throwing your weight around saying that the rules should accommodate you.
Taiwan produces semiconductors, whatever your business is doing, is a ‘nice to have’. Don’t get the idea that the Taiwan government needs to be bending over to attract you
That’s not the point of the gold card
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None of that is true. It’s roughly been a success, you don’t understand enough about the program and what the expectations were
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Even when paying regular tax in Taiwan, it’s still less than in many other countries: $160k / month (the “gold card salary”) for one year are $1.92 million. That comes out to almost exactly $160k tax liability for the year (for a single person without dependents) - so only 1/12 or roughly 8% tax rate!
Many countries will tax retained or distributed profit by more than that. So it can definitely make sense to pay yourself a salary while in Taiwan. Even when having an (overseas) business.
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Are you using an Estonia company and paying 0% retained taxes? Perhaps you should consider moving to Dubai? It’s quite easy to get a visa there nowadays
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