I’m thinking of retiring early and moving to Kaohsiung next year, so I’m just doing some research and due diligence right now.
My professional background is in factory automation engineering, and I would have my Taiwan Employment Gold Card secured before arriving. I’m ABC, native English speaker, no Chinese. Currently live and work in California.
I’d like to do something part-time work just to stay semi-active. I thought English tutoring or conversational coaching might be an option.
What is the possibility of getting low-stress work (16 hours/week or less)? Preferably something that does not involve any lesson planning. What types of roles would be available for someone in my position?
My schedule would be flexible and I’m not particularly concerned about money. I’d like to get something that would allow me to immediately qualify for NHI coverage.
I think most employers won’t register you for nih and laobao if part time, you can check the situation with gold card folks. Some will deliberately keep you under certain amount of hours as they don’t want to make contributions.
I see unemployed gold card holders can get NIH after six months in Taiwan.
I think jobs need to be more than 12 hours per week to qualify for NIH.
Health Insurance Rules for Part-Time Jobs
• Long-term jobs (3 months or more): If you work regular hours (such as more than 12 hours a week or scheduled shifts on workdays), your employer is required by law to enroll you in the NHI program.
If you don’t mind some extra paperwork hassle and cost, as a Gold Card holder you can start a company, employ yourself, and be eligible for NIH immediately.
Thanks. I will look into that as a backup option. It introduces some problems with US taxes, but it could definitely be worth doing if I need the insurance.
It only eliminates the 6mo delay, there is a cost of course, and setup takes time as well, though you would be having a CPA (not an attorney) do it for you anyway and it can be completely done before you move.
US taxes actually won’t be a problem other than the extra paperwork, i.e. there’s no penalty per se for owning it.
If you’re seriously considering it though, I would pose any tax questions (and filing) to @Bree as there could be some optimization decisions to make based on your income, etc.
Opening a company is too much extra hassle and cost unless you what to actually do something with it , been there done that. There’s license plate fees, accountancy fees.
You’ll even have the tax office calling you why you aren’t reporting revenue etc…
I’ve looked into it previously and kind of disregarded it as too much trouble. Other than the hassle of setting up the company, there’s the need to actually hustle to find clients, with no guarantee.
As for US taxes, my understanding is that I’d be subject to the self-employment tax which is around 15.3%, on top of anything that I might owe in Taiwan.
So it’s a backup, but I would probably just opt to wait out the clock.
It depends on his financial situation - he has a Gold Card and he’ll be needing to bring funds into Taiwan anyway for living expenses, so passing them through the company as a “salary” solves his problem and has some additional benefits without it having to be a “real” company (plate fees, fapiao etc). Sure, he has to pay a bookkeeper to handle filing, but that won’t cost much if he’s not really doing business.
And if he ever does decide to earn some extra independent income showing tourists around or doing real-estate or something he’s ready to go!
I have enough in retirement savings that I really don’t need to work. As far as I can tell, there’s no problem with me simply transferring funds into a local bank account. I just wanted something that could keep me busy a little. The NHI thing is because I have some pre-existing conditions that make private health insurance for the 6 month waiting period very expensive or even impossible. So a part-time gig kind of solves both problems.
I had to go back to this and read between the lines a bit. Are you suggesting that I could set up the company but not have to actually do any work? I mean, that sounds interesting, but I don’t think I’d want to take any chances of being less than 100% legit.
And the GC tax shelter minimizes your exposure on that side while you pay into NHI etc like a good business owner should.
It’s all perfectly legit - even more so than waiting 6mo and then paying the bare minimum into the system. (NHI rate is based on income, which you’ll need to keep at a minimum level if you expect to renew the Gold Card later - but the higher NHI rate is still peanuts - just do it.)
I do not know the “right” answer there, just that money coming into the country is generally considered income, although I also know of various one-time exceptions that can be made, and something like SS (if you’re American) or similar retirement funds may be exceptable on a more permanent basis. (That would be a good question for @Bree )
