I have a friend who has been working at a side job babysitting/teaching English for the past few months. She also has her main daytime job but wants some extra cash.
She’s been getting her main salary paid into her bank account and let’s it build up. Yet it’s just in there not being touched, she pays for everything with her side job money in cash.
Is there any way where she will get in trouble for this? Would the bank want to know why she isn’t spending her money and want to know how she pays for everything?
If they ask, she could just say she’s using her American bank account to pay for everything but I assume they would then ask for proof.
I thought that might be the case. I don’t think the tax offices ask for bank statements though after April 1st, right?
I don’t remember them asking for mine last year.
They never ask for them. But if I understand correctly, banks in Taiwan are required to share information with the tax authorities, so they would know anyway.
That is pretty much impossible. They are required to share, if asked. The insane paperwork nightmare if they shared every persons banking information from every bank for every tax return is impossible enough in countries with a fully modern banking system, let alone the banking mess that is Taiwan.
We are 100 percent in agreement. Re-read your original reply, it can be read to mean that for every tax return the tax agency already has your bank information on hand and can peruse it at will, which is not the case.
In the OP’s case, they would have no way of knowing unless they are looking for something.
I feel like more sharing goes on than this post suggests. When I was opening a bank account at Mega Bank a couple of months ago, the staff already knew that I’d opened accounts with CTBC and Standard Chartered and when I’d opened them (because they wanted to know why I wished to open another account). I found that a bit surprising, but there’s no way they could have known that unless the banks were automatically sharing this information, presumably via the tax office or some other centralized system.
IIRC, the tax applied to interest earned is also directly shared with the tax office, no?
This is legally required to be disclosed. I find your comment that they knew about your other accounts very interesting - and likely related to FATCA disclosure requirements, IMHO.
I deal with information disclosure with banks almost everyday in my work - it requires a ridiculous amount of paperwork, coordination, nd time on all sides. However, it would be interesting to find out what exact information banks have in relation to each individual - why doesn’t someone just go and ask? This isn’t some huge secret, and they are likely legally obliged to let you know as a customer, if you ask.
