I filed my taxes for the first time back in May. My wife is Taiwanese but she hasn’t been working for the passed year because she is in school. I went to file at the tax office and there was no one there who spoke English so I had to go through the process in Chinese. I explained to them my situation and that I would be filing as head of household with her as the dependent. It went over much smoother than I expected…so I thought.
August rolls around and I haven’t received my refund so I call the office to find out what’s up. They tell me(in English this time) that they are withholding my refund in another county because my wife didn’t file her taxes in 2004 in that county. I didn’t come to Taiwan until 2006 and certainly didn’t even know my wife existed before then. Of course I asked them how this has anything to do with me and they said that my tax papers showed that I filed with her as head of household.
This doesn’t make any sense to me and they didn’t seem willing to explain the situation in further detail. Has anyone been through this before?
Nobody else here knew the answer? The mistake is yours. Your wife is your residency sponsor and, in the eyes of the government, the head of the household-- 戶長. You are not a citizen and, strictly speaking, you don’t possess a household for you to be the head of, so to speak. This is why your name was added to her household registry. Look on your ARC card and, if you can’t read Chinese, ask your wife to translate. It says: “dependent.” That is your status, whether or not you are the principal wage earner.
I didn’t know that, but I guess I should have… It makes perfect sense.
In my case, I’m still puzzled why they paid my wife’s tax refund into my account (possibly because her taxes were done with mine by my company?), but I still haven’t received my tax refund…
Has everyone else received their tax refunds already?
Yeah, I found out from a friend that by law anything owed in taxes from my wife’s end, immediately becomes my responsibility upon filing jointly. Which explains why they used my refund to pay off what she owed.
A bit off topic but pertinent anway.
Last year, while filing, I asked the Banciou office worker (BTW, excellent help at this office) if I could claim my long term SO as a dependant because she didn’t work and our households were the same. I had taken her card with me. I was told it would be ok and took the dependant reduction. Weeks later I got a call that the tax office needed to talk to me. It turned out that the worker had made a mistake and I could not claim a non-married person as a dependant. I didn’t appeal and simply paid the extra tax but I think the government’s position would probably fail. First, I was her sole support in the same household. Second, on a social level, this allowing a tax deduction would encourage people to help each other and save society money. Third, it encourages relationships and even an eventual marriage.
[quote=“Enigma”]A bit off topic but pertinent anway.
Last year, while filing, I asked the Banciou office worker (BTW, excellent help at this office) if I could claim my long term SO as a dependant because she didn’t work and our households were the same. I had taken her card with me. I was told it would be ok and took the dependant reduction. Weeks later I got a call that the tax office needed to talk to me. It turned out that the worker had made a mistake and I could not claim a non-married person as a dependant. I didn’t appeal and simply paid the extra tax but I think the government’s position would probably fail. First, I was her sole support in the same household. Second, on a social level, this allowing a tax deduction would encourage people to help each other and save society money. Third, it encourages relationships and even an eventual marriage.[/quote]
My reading of the tax law is that you should have been able to claim her as a dependent.
