Which country and what is the setup? Is it a limited company with you as one of the directors?
Who said that it can’t be used as your office address?
What do you mean by a 180 day visa? Are you a UK citizen on a landing visa or do you have a proper visitor visa that you applied for in advance? I’m not aware of any 180 day visa, only a 60 day visa that can be renewed twice (at NIA’s discretion).
I would still use a local CPA to do the company registration for you, in which case less than $10,000.
You can’t get the ARC without the work permit first.
Originals of incorporation / business registration Certificates can be in English with a translation. The translation need NOT be done by an official translator or translation company. I was told this by the CPA desk at the Ministry of Economic Affairs (Fuzhou street in Guting).
You can register any address for which you can obtain (from the property owner) proof that property taxes are being paid, and which will satisfy the tax office inspectors who will come around after a while (month or two?). So no ‘jiagai’ (roof-top additions), etc. I’m guessing any place that looks like rep duties are being legitimately carried out will suffice, so home office shouldn’t be a problem. This is me going on what I’ve read here.
I’m also trying to go the no-CPA route. I think it’s possible and I’m up for the challenge. I do speak fluent Chinese, though. Anyway thus far I see no reason it shouldn’t be impossible let alone difficult. So far finding the right way to approach landlords about getting the tax forms has been the trickiest bit!
If you speak Chinese and want a standard Taiwanese company then my suggestion as I mentioned before is to get a local CPA to do the company registration and do the rest yourself. They charge $5,000-$7,000 and it will save you a lot of running around etc.
For a rep office the process is even easier and getting a CPA to do it for you is a waste of money IMHO.
I didn’t express myself correctly. I think I have read a few pages back, that the MOEA are less and less reluctant to give you investor status based on the contract with a Taiwanese company and your own letter confirming the cooperation with them and thus justifying your presence in TW as a representative - but I still hope getting investor status is possible under other conditions.
“Which country and what is the setup? Is it a limited company with you as one of the directors?”
Our company is based in Slovakia, I am also Slovak. I am not sure of the correct translation of my position into English. It should probably be “managing director”. There are two of us, where we jointly submitted the minimum starting capital, each of us paying a different portion, while each person’s share is stated in the constituting contract.
EDIT: I just verified with my accountant, checked the constituting documents, and the business registry which says that the managing directors can act on their own. I need to summon the general assembly (me and my partner), officially decide that we will open an RO in Taiwan, put it into writing and date it before the RO’s registration here in TW and subsequently enter the new activity into the Slovak business register. Yay!
“Originals of incorporation / business registration Certificates can be in English with a translation. The translation need NOT be done by an official translator or translation company. I was told this by the CPA desk at the Ministry of Economic Affairs (Fuzhou street in Guting).”
So if I understand correctly, the documents NEED to have a translation into Chinese which CAN be done by me?
“Who said that it can’t be used as your office address?” - My landlord did. It is actually somewhere in the contract. I assume it is possible, he is only reluctant to do so for this or other reason.
“What do you mean by a 180 day visa? Are you a UK citizen on a landing visa or do you have a proper visitor visa that you applied for in advance? I’m not aware of any 180 day visa, only a 60 day visa that can be renewed twice (at NIA’s discretion).”
I have a properly applied, 180 day multiple entry, non-extendable visitor visa.
“You can’t get the ARC without the work permit first.”
About an hour ago I was proud of myself that I finally understood the difference between a work permit and permission to work, seems I’m wrong
The way I understood it was that at the MOEA I will obtain the permission to work, which will allow me to apply for my visa and ARC. I though a work permit is another thing that I would have to apply for and would only have to apply if my activities would be outside of the scope of what the back of my ARC would say… I am lost in this I have to say. I thought it would save us some expenses since I would only operate within the scope of my intent anyway.
[quote=“vlad”]7. “You can’t get the ARC without the work permit first.”
About an hour ago I was proud of myself that I finally understood the difference between a work permit and permission to work, seems I’m wrong
The way I understood it was that at the MOEA I will obtain the permission to work, which will allow me to apply for my visa and ARC. I though a work permit is another thing that I would have to apply for and would only have to apply if my activities would be outside of the scope of what the back of my ARC would say… I am lost in this I have to say. I thought it would save us some expenses since I would only operate within the scope of my intent anyway.[/quote]
If you apply for a rep office as an employee of your own company then the work permit is your permission to work. If you apply as an investor then you get special permission to do your representative duties from MOEA, but due to CPAs farming out applications in a standard way I don’t even know if that’s possible any more. Unless you have an established business and some kind of outside approval / guanxi then I would save time and just go down the employee route.
It sounds like you were planning to set up as an employee in which case you cannot get around the work permit requirement. It doesn’t matter if you own the company, if you are applying in this way then you need a work permit.
[quote=“llary”][quote=“vlad”]7. “You can’t get the ARC without the work permit first.”
About an hour ago I was proud of myself that I finally understood the difference between a work permit and permission to work, seems I’m wrong
The way I understood it was that at the MOEA I will obtain the permission to work, which will allow me to apply for my visa and ARC. I though a work permit is another thing that I would have to apply for and would only have to apply if my activities would be outside of the scope of what the back of my ARC would say… I am lost in this I have to say. I thought it would save us some expenses since I would only operate within the scope of my intent anyway.[/quote]
If you apply for a rep office as an employee of your own company then the work permit is your permission to work. If you apply as an investor then you get special permission to do your representative duties from MOEA, but due to CPAs farming out applications in a standard way I don’t even know if that’s possible any more. Unless you have an established business and some kind of outside approval / guanxi then I would save time and just go down the employee route.
It sounds like you were planning to set up as an employee in which case you cannot get around the work permit requirement. It doesn’t matter if you own the company, if you are applying in this way then you need a work permit.[/quote]
When I did this process and brought up the whole “investor” route to people, no one knew what I was even talking about. I ended up going down the “employer” route, which from what I gathered, is standard these days. Llary’s situation may have been different because of existing contracts or it may be that things have changed due to the reasons he gave-my impression is that the latter is the case, as the words “investor” and “branch office” in the same sentence garnered nothing but blank stares.
I’m moving on with the application process and if I finish it successfully, I will post a step by step guide according to the most recent rules, because they have either changed a little bit again or different officials seem to be giving me different information.
In either case, yesterday I went to the 經濟部 and they told me that in order to apply for employee status, you do not need the employee contract, you only need the decision of your ltd. company’s general assembly, which decides to set up a legal representation in Taiwan, which needs to be legalized by the Taipei repr. office in your country…I really don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong so just in case I will legalize this as well and have it sent to Taiwan.
I would like to ask one more question if I can Regarding the address of the Repr. office:
If I register it at my apartment (not sure whether ‘register’ is the right word), will it influence my landlord’s taxes? If I understand it correctly, it is only a legal representation of a company which is registered in Slovakia so taxes are payed there and if I understand it correctly, it is not an office per se, it is only the address of the legal representative in Taiwan and so these documents (完稅稅單, 租約) should only confirm that the representative has a place to live at. If I understand correctly that is…however at the 經濟部 they told me 辦事處 is an office and it will influence the landlord’s taxes but in all honesty, the woman telling me that didn’t seem to be very sure about it either.
Most people renting casually in Taiwan are not paying rental tax, that is what landlords are usually worried about. I have an agreement with the landlord at one of our offices that if they are asked to pay any extra tax because of registering a rep. office there we will cover it. We have been there for 5 years now and nobody has been asked to pay any additional tax.
Registering a property for commercial use does have tax implications but since that is not necessary for establishing a rep. office it shouldn’t apply.
Can somebody help me with this translation into Chinese or alternatively recommend a good translator for this kind of thing?
“I hereby file for entry in the commercial register that the shareholders meeting of XXX, registered in the commercial register of the city of XXX under HRB 12345, had repealed the branch of XXX and apply for the cancellation of the branch in the responsible commercial register if the Republic of China.”
In reality it is not a branch, but a rep office, but it took me half a year to get this piece of paper from the gr#df%4ing company notarized so I hope the authorities won’t give me a hard time about this.
[quote=“llary”]Most people renting casually in Taiwan are not paying rental tax, that is what landlords are usually worried about. I have an agreement with the landlord at one of our offices that if they are asked to pay any extra tax because of registering a rep. office there we will cover it. We have been there for 5 years now and nobody has been asked to pay any additional tax.
Registering a property for commercial use does have tax implications but since that is not necessary for establishing a rep. office it shouldn’t apply.[/quote]
This is absolutely true. My friend owns the place I used to register my office and I even went to the tax office to get some paper for the bank with that address and never got a notice. Here’s the hard part-convincing a landlord that it won’t affect their taxes. They will freak. They will think it has the potential for trouble. They won’t want to do it.
Best thing to do is find someone you are close to and register the office there. Then you can, like Llary and I have done, promise to cover the difference if it ever arises. It won’t, but you’ll be better off working out this deal with someone you know. Even if it does happen, the amount of tax difference is really small.
And for those worrying about paying the difference, the rental tax is 10% withholding plus 5% VAT. If the landlord wants to net the amount of rent agreed then the additional tax would be: ((R/0.90)*1.05)-R where “R” is net rent paid to the landlord. There are also ways that rental tax can be paid through a third-party if it comes to that. But as previously mentioned, that should only be an issue if the business wants to get an official tax receipt so that they can file it as an expense in their tax filing in Taiwan.
And if you are doing this in a residential place, you can say that you are using only part of the property for the business. I think you can go as low as 1/6 taxed as business, the rest as residential. That makes it much more palatable. But as has been said, really not an issue because they will not change the tax based on a rep office…not that I have ever heard.
it just occurred to me, that if you are to act as a legal representative of your home company and you cannot do business here in Taiwan, only in the name of your company and every invoice has to be invoiced back home, who do I ship the cargo to? Can I ship the cargo from Italy (in my case) and the receiver in Taiwan will be our representative office? Or am I only allowed to ship to Taiwanese distributors?
I need for the coffee to land in Taiwan and place it in a warehouse, or in case of a trial order in my flat, but I am a little confused when it comes to the receiver of the shipment. Or I just ship it to myself as a physical person?
That is a really a gray area, since technically importing, storing and distributing goods is beyond the official remit of a rep. office.
If you need to import some small volume of items as samples then it will be fine to use your personal name. You won’t be able to import anything under your company name without an import license and I don’t think you will get one of those through a rep. office.
If you are going to run your own warehousing operation or sell to Taiwanse customers then you really need a full branch office or regular Taiwanese company. There’s nothing stopping you from running both a rep. office and one or more other entities. For example my ARC and most of our employees are registered through a rep. office. The rep. office is the forward facing part of our company that deals with customers and suppliers. We also have a standard Taiwanese company that handles warehousing, manufacture and distribution. This way is a bit complicated to set up at first but it’s extremely convenient to maintain.
Just got off the phone with the lovely people at the MOEA. Although it didn’t have much to do with my question, somehow the lady mentioned a change in the requirements for rep. offices, posted last October, which until now no one had mentioned to me. It’s big news.
Basically the choices for having documents certified/legalized/whathaveyou suddenly became a lot broader. For all documents that require any kind of check (驗證), you can have it checked by your choice of:
-Your home government checking body;
-A court/notary/commissioner of oaths in your home country;
-A court/notary in Taiwan;
-The representative office of your home country in Taiwan;
-The Taiwan representative office in your home country.
All that remains is to find out which entity is willing to perform the check, since obviously not all will check just any document. Frustratingly the ‘check’ that must be performed is very vague, even the MOEA rep. I spoke to couldn’t say what kind of check was needed. For example, she said that for the power of attorney either a 公證 or 認證 from the Taipei municipal court was fine, even though they’re not the same and one costs twice the other (which she knew). Go figure.
For those who want to get it from the horse’s mouth:
I had the same answer and had the Power of attorney checked for 500 NTD by a notary in Taiwan. Closest from the MOEA is the one at the Taipei power building MRT station, exit 5.
The Slovak representative office in Taiwan had no idea what to do and said that they only legalize Taiwanese documents for the use in Slovakia not the other way around, the Swedish office said the same so I imagine it is impossible with others as well.
After reading this whole thread I am much more aware of what is a rep. office, however I cannot understand that we cannot have Taiwanese custumers… :-/ Or is it possible to make business with Taiwanese throught the rep. office but making all the financial part by the head office aboard?
The idea is to have a person here in Taiwan who can meet clients (not find clients though), sign contracts, purchase products for export, and a few other things, all for the parent company abroad. It’s very basic.
The idea behind the rep. office structure is for large foreign corporations or organizations to easily establish a legal presence in Taiwan. As I shared in this thread I found it’s also a very useful structure for startup companies or much smaller operations looking to get a footing here.
I am lost in this I have to say. I thought it would save us some expenses since I would only operate within the scope of my intent anyway.