I just found a shortcut. What's the worst that could happen?

Legal Visa & Residency
1

My old employer let me go in June, just a couple months after I received my ARC and work visa. I chose to pay double and get an ARC that was valid for 2 years, instead of the typical 1 year.

My old employer said I’d have to turn in my ARC and Nat’l Health Insurance card to either them or the gov’t. I ended up doing neither, since nobody came a knockin’. Now I have 2 new part time jobs. Both pay me under the table, and neither tax me. As a matter of fact, I’ve never paid tax in Taiwan.

Recently, both of my employers have asked me if I need visa sponsorship. Whichever one did it would have to dock my pay for processing fees and then start to tax me. Both are perfectly content not to sponsor me, since that means less work for them. I can’t do an ARC transfer, since my last employer would have to fill out a form saying they approve of the transfer, and I’m not on speaking terms with them.

Here’s what I’m thinking of doing. I think I’ll tell both my new employers that the other is sponsoring me already, and just hang onto my old ARC, NHIC, and work visa. All of these are still valid to the naked eye, since the date of expiration is in 2005. But I plan to be out of Taiwan for good by 2005, and don’t plan on trying to reenter on the old visa once it’s expired.

Can anyone here anticipate me having any serious border troubles when I exit Taiwan? Will I quite likely pay for my deviant ways, or will they probably jsut give me a quick glance and stamp me out?

If you have a mind to scold me for being an unethical scofflaw, an ungrateful guest in a foreign land, making it hard for the rest of us who play fair, and all that jazz, I’m not listening, so don’t even waste your time. I’ve shelled out tens of thousands of NT altogether to pay for the airplane tickets and processing fees to get the present documents I have, so I don’t feel like being lectured about what I owe this country.

I’m talking on a strictly practical level – assuming I don’t encounter any incidents in Taiwan which would provoke a thorough search into my visa status, how safe am I? Remember this is not Japan or Korea, where Big Brother keeps a steely glare on all foreigners, and illegal stayers run a very real chance of getting, detained, beaten in detention, deported, and banned.

2

Oh well in that case, don’t worry about a thing. Everything will be just fine and there’s no way anyone will catch you out. :unamused:
Damn, but some folks have really strange methods of seeking advice.

3

You’ll probably be fine if you don’t mind working illegally and having those little worries. Noone will be paying for your health insurance though.

Brian

4

[edited]
Well, for starters, your multiple re-entry visa becomes invalid when your ARC is canceled, and I assume it already has been through the computer system. And the fact that you hold a valid ARC (on the face of it) does not permit you residency. It simply indicates your status.
Now, I’m sure that as long as you evade the cops for the remaining period of your stay in Taiwan, you’ll be fine. Expect an overstay fine on the way out though, and obviously, you’ll be denied visa-free landings for a year.

5

What about all those Russian people who come here on tourist Visas, then say they’re from England and teach English for months at a dumpy little cram school on an expired tourist visa? How about Pakistani people who run little import businesses but don’t have the papers to be here? What about African “students” here who just kinda hang out a lot in this country for years?

These aren’t the “runaway” SE Asian laborers or the Mainland boat people. They’re not high profile and they have ways to make it here that don’t harm anybody. But they’re hardly international businessmen here either. I doubt a lot of them plan on paying 1wan or more as they leave the country on their sputtered out visas. Doubt they’d come if they knew they’d have to. What happens to these people?

I got stamped in with an expired multiple entry visa. I can’t see how it would be too too hard to get back out.

6

That’s because the visa “underneath” an ARC is NOT a multiple-entry tourist visa, it’s a resident visa. The resident visa is stamped “used” on your first resident type entry, and after that you’re on the ARC.

But, if your prior employer cancels the ARC (as they should have done, and could do at any time, and will in fact be liable for penalty for not doing AFAIK) you could easily have a visit from the nice boys at the Foreign Affairs Police, who would escort you to the airport with very few questions being asked.

I’ve been squeaky-clean legal here since 1993 – but I can tell you this for sure: it only takes one phone call from someone who wants to cause you trouble and the police and various other government offices will be breathing down your throat and counting the socks in your drawer. It doesn’t matter how low your profile – I got hit when my profile was in fact at an all-time low here. Fortunately I had all the correct (and valid, when checked) documents, so I didn’t have to worry.

If you’re making so little money that the puny contribution to the Health Insurance scheme plus NT$1000 or $2000 to pay for a new ARC is an issue, then maybe you should think about why you want to stay here working. Obviously you’ve already decided that your “way” is the right way to go and don’t want to hear advice, but if you have not one but two people offering you an ARC, I can’t see for the life of me why you would not take it, unless you are the kind of person who doesn’t want to be on anyone’s ARC for philosophical reasons (but most of them are over at Tea$hit.) :?

7

Change your status, Dave. It’s not worth the worry.
You know how life has a way of turning up unexpected events. Maybe you’ll meet someone and end up wanting to stay longer. Maybe you’ll find the job of your dreams. Maybe you’ll want to come back to Taiwan. etc etc
It’s better to be karma-free so you’re not always looking over your shoulder, too.
How much trouble is it to get legalized by the company that offered to do that? A day of bureaucracy, a visit to your old place of work to get the transfer letter? It’s not that much trouble really compared to what may be in store for you. Don’t be so lazy Dave, and straighten things out. Think long term! You’ll be very glad you did.

8

I would get someone to call the police for you to find out your status before even having this conversation.

If Dave’s old employer DID cancel his visa like they’re supposed to then he is now already long overstayed, and can’t get a new ARC without hassle and a visa run.

In that case he’s looking at easily NT$25000 in costs, plus he’ll have to start paying taxes. And then there’s the question of being owned by your employer and what happens when they don’t need you any more.

Even so, I would agree with Alien - once you start screwing with the system then the chances are that the system will start screwing with you. All it takes is a marriage or sick relative back home, some tosser driving their car/scooter into you, wandering into someone else’s bar fight by mistake and getting arrested, scooter getting towed, loss or theft of anything valuable, dispute with an employer or anyone, or anything at all that can bring you to the attention of the powers-that-be, and you’re fucked.

Take the ARC from the job that makes the least demands and pays you the least. I believe you can get it endorsed to hold two legal jobs these days, but you’re balancing more tax against being able to stay here legally if one has to let you go.

9

…and maybe you’ll find a little leprechaun who will lead you to that big ol’ pot of gold…

Bloody hell, Ann Landers - er, I mean, Alien - that’s the most poetic, heartwrenching post you’ve written. Got the waterworks going better than when watching “I Am Sam”…

10

[quote=“The Big Babou”]
Bloody hell, Ann Landers - er, I mean, Alien - that’s the most poetic, heartwrenching post you’ve written. Got the waterworks going better than when watching “I am Sam”…[/quote]

Ta Babs,
I have to post something every once in a while that proves I do deserve the throbbing blue ball sage chop.
:?
Too bad we don’t have a smirky-faced mao jacketed chop for you.

11

Just because some people do the same and you might not get caught, doesn’t mean that it is OK to do it. Why do people like you suddenly forget all their manners and sense of righteousness once they get out of their homecountry??? Confess, you were the drunken foreign bastard who insulted the Taiwanese cops and was all over the news…

12

He is not listenening.

(hands over his ears) “la la la la la la la, I can’t hear you!!!”

There is the easy way and the hard way to do things, he has chosen the hard and the lazy way, although it does look easy to begin with.

13

Haha, is there a ‘minimum time’ limit between ARC transfers?

Hypothetically… if I was at the police station on Monday and slated to get my first ARC on Friday, but hypothetically I’m also expecting approval for a new work permit for a new job supposibly this coming Monday… hypothetically I think I’m in for a doozy with my old employer on this one hehe, plus my hypothetical new employer wants me to start ASAP :wink:

Also hypothetically speaking, my old employer also went out on a limb and begged for a visa extension since my hypothetical tourist visa was gonna expire :wink: :wink: