I went to the tax office today. I have a new client but I want that client to pay to one of my other nationality and names that have not been used in Taiwan.
So I ask, how can this identity pay tax on overseas income. Tax office staff are like, well has that passport and name ever been used to enter Taiwan?
No, I reply.
Well then if that identity has never been resident in Taiwan then can’t pay tax in Taiwan because you effectively don’t exist I am told. Just don’t declare as you are not using the same name .
Well that’s obviously not the right answer. Your other name and nationality are still you, and you’re still tax resident in Taiwan and it’s still your income.
Anyway, you’d just declare the income as normal overseas income. It’s not really any different from how I’d declare income from overseas clients and give copies of the invoices. My name and address are on the invoices, but nothing about nationality or my ARC number or passport details or anything. Those things aren’t really relevant to the question.
There are gaps in the system for sure because the tax office can’t really track overseas income, but there’s nothing to stop you paying the tax you’re supposed to if you consider that your duty as a Taiwanese citizen.
Obviously I don’t know, but I would assume the same human who earns money here is responsible for tax here, regardless of paperwork given as it still comes back to you. I would think passports are only useful for entry/exit and customs related scenarios. Working in house gets taxed in house unless you are claiming you are not a resident?
If you want your client to pay your oversees account, that is easy as pie.
So what you should do now is go on their website and use their form to ask and have them send you a written emailed reply. Keep this so if they ever do come after you, you can protect yourself.
Absolutely. Hence the clarification on assumption and the questions for further clarification. Vague questions get vague answers. It’s a brainstorm, not a meeting with a lawyer
Are you suggesting he counts as two people because he has multiple nationalities and hasn’t used one of the names/passports in Taiwan? I doubt it. It’s his income, not somebody else’s.
Yeah, and the random tax office clerk isn’t immune to giving out wrong info. It wasn’t so long ago that some of them were saying income paid overseas falls under AMT not Taiwan-sourced income, and as you know the tax office/MOF as a whole are still interpreting residents as being non-residents.
NIA already said if I enter on a foreign passport I can get a non resident Tax ID number even though I am a citizen. The number would not match my ID Card number of course. I would be seen as a foreigner with no residency or work rights subject to 90 day stay as a tourist.
Maybe not in the UK but in Taiwan this seems to be the case. I know of some who are Taiwan nationals but choose to come on their foreign passports and get an arc (which is perfectly legal according to the NIA)
I also have a friend (dual American and Taiwan citizen) who used his American passport to claim the tourist vouchers at the at the airport.
They stamped him with same 90 days and told him he’d have to leave and come back on his Taiwan passport to have his working rights etc…
I think you just confused them with your wording, or they are just naturally confused.
Your overseas identity would be the same/ similar to being paid into an overseas registered business. This then starts going into the nature of the work and the clients and your tax liability either in Taiwan or where its registered.
I think this is really just a side effect of a chabuduoly designed system not set up to accommodate every edge case, rather than some kind of official policy to let dual nationals be considered tourists. This is just one of those situations where the oversight had a positive effect for the recipient rather than a negative one.
Come to think of it, one of my clients pays me into a Chinese bank account registered for using a long-replaced passport not linked to my APRC number in Taiwan. That must be tax-free too.
You mentioned going by the actual law and not feelings above, and I don’t think there’s any reason to assume that a different nationality and name are the criteria for one natural person splitting into two individuals for tax purposes?
Maybe the criteria could be a different passport number and expiry date. That’s an old me, not the current me.
