Come on man. Do a bit of research before you travel. Don’t make us look bad.
Yeah. I’ve taken money out of the country before. This isn’t a difficult thing to do.
What kind of ‘professor’ only makes $500000?
I guess one that talks to the police and doesn’t consult a lawyer.
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That’s harsh, punished for being honest
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Another example why many anti-money-laundering laws mostly cause headaches and pain for non-criminals while the actual criminals just laugh about these laws…
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What a stupid professor. Doesn’t he realise that it is near impossible to exchange that amount of NTD abroad???
Why on earth doesn’t he have a bank account!!!?
Also why didn’t he see the signs posted nearly everywhere?
He wasn’t honest until they scanned his bags and questioned him at that point. (from how the article reads)
He didn’t declare the money.
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If TW custom didn’t get him, the other end would have. Being ignorant isn’t above the law I guess.
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That’s a lot of NTD to carry around as one leaves the country. What was he thinking? Trying to avoid scrutiny from US tax authorities?
Guy
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Anything you earn below 120K overseas is tax free is it not?
IRS could give two fucks about 15K
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That article reads as sketchy as f*ck. But if he is truly honest, this was handled pretty poorly by the government. Best way forward is to go forward in media and embarrass the government with a lawyer.
Unless there is something to hide…
it is hard for foreigners, especially for American citizens given tax laws, to have a bank account in Taiwan
How true is that? I remember opening a bank account at the post office as an exchange student. Unless I’m missing something I smell an example of “this ain’t America so I can be as irresponsible as I want.”
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I can’t understand it.
I’d guess someone like this was bringing NT to someone who wanted NT.
Underhand payment.
He probably lowballed by the uni.
Paid by cash.
Bank account/book not accessible to him, just to show salary paid as contract.
(You need to be paid minimum 48K a month, right?)
Hence the reason he only have 500K. His actual salary is lower than the limit.
Unless you enforce the law, then ignorance is an excuse.
He didn’t have 500K seized, he had 400K seized. Had he declared the 500K none of it would have been seized.
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I think it’s possible there’s something else going on here… A lump sum for the annual salary? Only 500,000 for the year… It all sounds really weird
At least now when people say Foreigners are over paid here, we can just show this article
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I did a Google search on the guy and he had significant international experience. Probably he has taken cash payments before and taken it back like this to avoid taxes, never been caught before. IRS might take an interest now.
Probably he wasn’t expected to work full time. He could have just been teaching one class per semester, maybe doing some conducting or other work as well. Sometimes universities pay people for the prestige of affiliation
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He’s on some kind of “lecturing professor” position at Fu-Jen.
I could see it either way. The first time I opened a bank account was a hassle and if he was here for a semester or something, he might never have done that. If he got the cash a few days ago and was leaving Taiwan for an extended period, he could easily just have lost it in the pile of details. I remembered that leaving the US you have to declare over 10,000, but I didn’t know the Taiwan number.
You’d still think with something like this customs could maybe have talked to him a bit longer, dialed up his employer, checked his tax-payment history, etc. I mean, he volunteered he was carrying cash–it doesn’t sound like he lied to them about it or they found it doing a search. My experience with Taiwan customs has usually been pretty good, so I’m surprised it went down this way.
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And then there are people like that guy:
The money was destined for Chen’s eldest son to invest in a beverage shop in the Philippines, reports said.
[…]
The son explained he did not have a credit card nor a bank account in the Philippines, where he spent two years, the Liberty Times reported. He would have used part of the money to buy tea processing equipment in Taiwan, and the rest to exchange into US dollars to invest overseas.
While it would not comment on individual cases due to privacy concerns, the rail company said it had not alerted police because its standard operating procedures only specified it should try and locate the owner of any lost item.
So basically: Nothing happened.
You’re missing the point. It’s not only that he didn’t declare it, but that it is prohibited to take more than $100000 out of Taiwan and the signs before tell you you need to go to the declaration office, where they would’ve told him no, he can’t do that anyways.
If you want to take more than $100000 worth of cash out of Taiwan, you need to convert it to another currency like US.
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