Labor Insurance, do schools have to pay for it by law?

Legal Legal - Work
, ,
21

You’re not one of those brain dead surfer dudes are ya? :wink: :notworthy:

Ok I guess I am a big dummy and really didn’t realize how this all worked. I just knew here or Canada I pay my taxes, and then sometimes I get money back and sometimes I don’t but yes… taxes + me = clueless.

The case at this employer (my employer for the past 4ish years) is case A…except sometimes the tax return is less. She’s reporting and taxing me like I’m making 35,000 (was 30,000 until I found out about the APRC stuff earlier this year).

My very first employer did a nasty little mix of Case A and Case B and did this to a good many people. They taxed us at the full amount of our salary but then when we got our tax withholding statement it said we had made much much much lower than we did and they told me “oh it doesn’t matter because you won’t have to pay any taxes”… I think they actually reported me as having paid 0 taxes if I can recall correctly… there was something about it being my first year and my salary so low… so believe it or not my current boss (the one I’m having issues with) helped me kick their butts and get my money back, not only that but a whole half months pay they had “forgotten” to pay me for work I’d done before having to go home for a family emergency. I think I walked out with a wad of over 60,000 NTD (and a smile).

So just to sum up the most important details of what you said… in the end it only really comes down to a difference of 36,000 NTD… because if my tax was honest I would owe the government 57,600 annually but get the rest of the withheld back, and under her current scheme I owe the government 21,600. :slight_smile: In a way it sounds nice having the government help me “save” 86,400 that I might normally blow on careless shopping. It’s like a savings account! Glass half full?

The only part I’m still confused about is you saying I’m in the lowest tax bracket. Sorry if I’m missing something really simple with this. You said [quote]Because you make so little for the whole year, $960,000, you are in the lowest tax bracket. Your tax liability is only 6%[/quote]

But according to here: ntat.gov.tw/county/ntat_ch/n … b26-14.jsp
410,000 and up is 13%
Is there a difference between the withholding rate and the tax liability rate?

:slight_smile: thanks for “tax & accounting 101”

Anyway if she won’t fatten up December it seems I’ll have to wait out my APRC one more year. I know this is a whole other can of worms but I’m still quite positive it’s better to go for my APRC if I can than the marriage one (starts with a J??)… since I’ve heard that if anything happens to your spouse, or if you divorce Taiwan can kick your butt out of the country… and we’re not quite married yet :blush: :whistle: and therein lies the problem with me not being able to get 6 months maternity leave OR employment insurance like I thought… but apparently I should still have labor insurance.

22

[quote=“shini”]The only part I’m still confused about is you saying I’m in the lowest tax bracket. Sorry if I’m missing something really simple with this.
But according to here: ntat.gov.tw/county/ntat_ch/n … b26-14.jsp
410,000 and up is 13%. Is there a difference between the withholding rate and the tax liability rate?[/quote]Wow! You’re right. Hmm Embarrassed! :blush: I’ve got to make a phone call to my friend that works in the tax office and ask her when this schedule came out. It’s actually new for me! The last I remembered, the taxes for your income level should have been 6%! When I was single and paid taxes for myself it was only 6%, but of course that was back in 2000 and 2001. This old man better get out of the past and into the present! I haven’t concerned myself with taxes for quite some time. After I got married I let my wife handle it all so I don’t have to muck around with it. I don’t ask my wife any questions and she doesn’t tell me any lies! :laughing:

23

Is a school required to apply for an English teacher’s National Health Insurance, even if that teacher is working 0 hours for them, but the ARC is still valid?

24

From what I know an ARC isn’t valid if you aren’t working a min. of 14 hours a week but I could have my facts wrong.

There’s probably cases where it could still be valid like if you applied for unpaid leave or something like that but from what I know you can’t “legally” have an ARC and 0 hours of work per week. What’s going to happen come tax time?

My first year working here I ran into problems with this at the tax office because I was home for 3 months (my father was diagnosed & passed away from cancer) but they were content after I provided his death certificate but they definitely noticed the “hole”.

25

[quote=“shini”]From what I know an ARC isn’t valid if you aren’t working a min. of 14 hours a week but I could have my facts wrong.

There’s probably cases where it could still be valid like if you applied for unpaid leave or something like that but from what I know you can’t “legally” have an ARC and 0 hours of work per week. What’s going to happen come tax time?

My first year working here I ran into problems with this at the tax office because I was home for 3 months (my father was diagnosed & passed away from cancer) but they were content after I provided his death certificate but they definitely noticed the “hole”.[/quote]

So when I file my taxes this year and it shows that I did not work any hours for four months and I tell them that my employer could not provide me with any hours, what will happen?

I haven’t received my tax income slips from my employer yet, so maybe the slips will say otherwise???

26

[quote=“Modest Mouse”]So when I file my taxes this year and it shows that I did not work any hours for four months and I tell them that my employer could not provide me with any hours, what will happen?

I haven’t received my tax income slips from my employer yet, so maybe the slips will say otherwise???[/quote]

The slips only show income earned over the whole year; a lump sum. There will be no indication of what you made each month.

27

[quote=“shini”]From what I know an ARC isn’t valid if you aren’t working a min. of 14 hours a week but I could have my facts wrong.

There’s probably cases where it could still be valid like if you applied for unpaid leave or something like that but from what I know you can’t “legally” have an ARC and 0 hours of work per week. What’s going to happen come tax time?

My first year working here I ran into problems with this at the tax office because I was home for 3 months (my father was diagnosed & passed away from cancer) but they were content after I provided his death certificate but they definitely noticed the “hole”.[/quote]

Well you could also title your post “do I have to declare my real income by law?”

Common sense tells you yes but we all can make mistakes and get caught out by under reporting. Under reporting benefits only your employer and nobody else.

28

Just a quick scan of the search results for Labor Insurance, this thread looked like it might answer my question, but it’s sort of all over the map on tax questions.

Are cram school teachers covered? Like the NHI, is the Labor Insurance a shared cost between employer and employee? Looking at my pay statements, the Labor Insurance box is blank, meaning they did not deduct anything from my pay, but I’ve never asked them if the company pays into it.

The HR manager of one company where I teach told me they can log on to the Bureau of Labor Insurance’s web site and check their balance. We couldn’t log on with my ARC number, presumably because I didn’t have a PIN number.

One thing the HR manager told me was that the labor insurance pays 3 months salary (a %?) for the death of a parent. Are we covered?

29

Buxibans are covered but most don’t pay it (which is illegal). The part where it gets confusing is that there is “labor insurance” and “employment insurance”. Both cover a lot of the same things to different extents. Foreign workers (inc. buxiban workers) should have labor insurance. Taiwanese (or those married to Taiwanese) should have employment insurance (or maybe both).

But yes, if your school was paying it (like they should but none seem to) you would be paying a premium.

Here’s the best of what I’ve found, hope this helps.

Regarding who is covered: bli.gov.tw/en/sub.aspx?a=4rZnmbYzw%2fk%3d

[quote]
Insured persons may participate in the program compulsorily or voluntarily. The following workers above 15 full years and below 60 years of age shall be insured under this program compulsorily:

  1. Workers employed by mine, a company or firm, a journalistic, cultural, or non-profit cooperative enterprise with more than five employees.
  2. Employees of government offices or public or private schools who are not legally entitled to join civil servants’ insurance or the insurance of teachers and employees of private schools;
  3. Workers employed in fishing production;

Besides workers who are insured compulsorily, employers concurrently engaged in laboring services and persons employed in enterprises with less than five employees may also participate in the program on a voluntary basis.

Insured persons in this program shall be covered via the employers, or the organizations or institutes to which they belong as the insured units[/quote].

My boss tried to argue that buxibans don’t meet any of these requirments but how can a non-profit org with 5 workers be required to give labor insurance and not a buxiban? Buxiban falls under “private school” from what I’ve been told.

Regarding the premium:
bli.gov.tw/en/sub.aspx?a=RdwuQNNQ80w%3d

bli.gov.tw/en/sub.aspx?a=ONc6CSOXFog%3d

[quote]The premium rates are of two types: ordinary and occupational accident. The former is currently prescribed at a rate of 6.5 percent of the insured person’s monthly insurance salary. Occupational accident insurance premium rates vary according to occupations, ranging from 0.05 percent to 2.97 percent of the insured person’s monthly insurance salary, as stipulated in the “Table of Business Category and Premium Applicable for the Occupational Accident of Labor Insurance” implemented from January 1st 2007, which is adjusted at least once every three year.

Since the Experience Rate System of Occupational Accident Insurance was implemented in 1996, an insured unit with more than one hundred employees shall pay premium at a rate which is readjusted every year pursuant to the increase or decrease of occupational accident benefits claimed by the insured unit. The application range extended to insured units with more than seventy employees from 2003. [/quote]

All the benefits are listed here (including maternity, injury & sick benefits, perm. disability, old age, death, and occupational accident):

bli.gov.tw/en/sub.aspx?a=cHVoa5l2xNw%3d

Hope this helps! I still have never called/dealt with the people who work at the labour bureau but a co-worker has a few times and said they’re excellent so if anything is unclear I’d just give them a call. You can tell them as little or much as you choose to.