Hi Richard, et. al.,
To my knowlege, the ability to get a quick tax return for teachers leaving the country works like this:
- Person leaving gets all tax forms from employers during the year.
- A letter of guarantee from a Taiwan citizen with chop and photocopy of I.D. is needed.
- Person leaving goes to the tax office, files, and writes and signs a short statement to the effect of “I will not requsest a quick return for the next 5 tax years” and can return in 5 days to get a “quick return”.
- 5 working days later, person leaving can drop by to pick up his/her return.
Here’s the catch: I work at a school that has campuses in Taipei City, Taipei County, Taichung and Kaohsiung. Taipei City, Taichung and Kaohsiung tax offices grant the “quick return” and have been doing so for years.
However, a teacher residing in Taipei County, who is leaving the country very soon, came back from the tax office there yesterday, and told us that they would not grant a quick return there. One of our Chinese staff gave a call to the tax office, and was told that (in translation) “because we are understaffed here, ‘quick returns’ are not granted in Taipei County”.
I would assume that ‘quick returns’ would be a part of national tax policy, and that regardless of location, this would be a right of all foreign taxpayers.
Do you have any advice on this issue? Or perhaps Taiwan tax law documentation to this effect? Any and all advice would be appreciated.