Contracts that specify illegal things are not enforceable in court.
Yes, I know. I haven’t suggested otherwise.
I’m not even referring to the rental contract - I’m talking about the agreement (presumably verbal) that they voluntarily made with the landlord to not declare the rental expenses on their tax return, which they also benefitted from and now want to renege on. If landlords not paying taxes is a moral issue for them, they could have avoided benefitting from it.
I was thinking the no-tax lease is what the landlord would report themselves. I’m fine with them not reporting if they want to save taxes.
I haven’t agreed with the landlord to not report my own expenses. It would include additional stuff like management fees and utility so wouldn’t match up anyways.
Maybe I’ll just report only the management fees and utility bills, which is not the landlord’s responsibility to pay tax on? But that might still get them in trouble since it just appears as ‘rent expenses’ on the tax form and they may take that to mean rental payments.
I’m not sure if they are smart/picky enough to match rental expenses with landlord claimed income for small cases. My rent is only about 15k a month. But the tax refund would be equal to about 2 months rent so is significant enough to go for a refund if it’s worth it.
Usually, the landlord will be in a much stronger bargaining position than the potential tenant. In practice, this might mean that a tenant might not find adequate housing if they insist on a landlord following all applicable laws.
I wouldn’t really see it as the landlord and tenant equally profiting from the tax fraud: It’s mostly the landlord profiting and the tenant can either accept or won’t get the apartment.
I think it’s pretty similar to an employee-employer relationship: When an employee “voluntarily” signs off their rights (in regards to vacation pay, sick-leave, workplace insurance coverage, unpaid overtime, …) and thus is offered a job, I still wouldn’t say the employee equally benefitted from this arrangement and believe it should be the employer being fined - and not the employee for including an “illegal” agreement in their contract.
I thought you had quite a high income and the maximum deductible for rent is NT$120k (as opposed to the standard deduction of NT$120k, assuming you’re single). I guess it would depend on what other itemized deductions you could use in addition to the rent.
Yeah I paid quite a lot in taxes this year and got taxed at the 40% bracket, so this 120k NTD deduction will end up being about a 30k NTD tax refund and worth the trips to the tax office. Some of my other itemized deductions got automatically computed, like NHI premiums, which was about 150k and pushes me past the 120k standard deduction.
If I can’t claim the full rental maybe I’ll claim the management fees and utilities, which is like 3k a month * 12 = 36k NTD deductions
If the landlord doesn’t have to pay tax, why do I need to pay tax?
The casual, apparently contractual, normalization of tax avoidance among the landlord class is one of the most infuriating aspects of life here. F&ck this, especially as I am paying my taxes fair and square! 
Guy
Since the maximum rental deduction is 120K NTD per year, I think this means optimally you should rent out a place at 12K NTD per month that declares tax? I’ve started to look for a new place, since my current landlord doesn’t declare tax and it seems to be costing quite a bit per year in deductions.
Why do you think I expended so much blood, sweat and tears to buy?
I don’t get the logic here? There are presumably many other considerations in choosing a place to live that come before maximizing the proportion of your rent you can deduct from your taxable income. Especially for someone who has a high income, I’m surprised this is an issue at all…
I guess you meant NT$10k (NT$120k divided by 12), but either way that’s probably gonna be a bit of a hole in Taipei City…
Will you take me in as a tenant?
I can pay rent in Ekselence ice cream bars. Your choice of flavours!
Guy
I am fighting for dual citizenship. To prove my Taiwaneseness, I will have to disallow you to claim rent deductions as I will be evading tax.
Thanks for pointing this out - I also forgot to factor in management fees and utility, so maybe rent in the range of 8-9k to maximize deductions.
What. Are. You. Talking. About! 
Guy
I’m not sure that management fees and utility bills are deductible (?), but…
…seriously…? 
If you want, you can live on my balcony for 8-9k per month, and you can claim tax deductions on it too.
Everyone in this thread is now dumber for having read that.
I think @jimbob132 's idea is to reach an agreement with a landlord to “split” the rent into an official and unofficial part. Then the landlord would only pay tax on roughly 10k a month while jimbob could fully utilize the value of the rent deduction.
That’s pretty smart actually, although it sort of makes the renter knowingly complicit in the tax fraud