Wife is going to check it out in the next few days. I’m on APRC, not JFRV. But she’s a Taiwanese citizen, despite also being a citizen of Hong Kong and holding a British passport. 
She doesn’t eat shit, so I’m looking forward to how the bureaucracy is going to deal with her. I almost feel sorry for them. 
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Keep us posted. : D
Guy
I’m going to do it this week.
You want pictures of all the stuff I bought with the extra coin? that kind of detail? 
Don’t care. They’ve already dug in, they can dig themselves out.
I can’t believe the uproar I’m hearing from the foreign community over 2000ntd. I’ve been here for over ten years and can’t vote or get a pension. I think we should pick our battles, I wish I saw this level of passion for other issues. You’re not going to get Taiwanese support for this
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I think it’s more symbolic and not about the 2k. It’s not very fair imo that foreigners pay taxes but don’t get this benefit. And I’m a citizen.
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This is right. The most important thing is dual citizenship. Most foreigners can put up with a bit of discrimination for a few years if they have a long term stake. But 20 years is insane.
That’s right. It’s a symbolic thing that we’re not getting what we pay into the taxes.
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Ok, but do you think actively making it harder for us to go for the gold is a good thing?
We already have an uphill battle as foreigners since we don’t get a vote. As citizens, lobbying gets much easier as now there are active constituents fighting for foreigner’s rights.
We need to be smart about this.
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I hate taxes. But I hate not getting anything back from paying taxes even more. at least in Taiwan I feel that the government actually tries to give me a lot of services back for it. It’s not a total rip off like in Italy. Not cool foreign tax payers don’t get anything.
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Completely agree with this.
I second that
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And that’s 20 years with no end in sight.
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Nobody cares about the $2000. Do you know why we still don’t have pensions and in general are excluded from this and that? Because quite simply foreigners here bellyache about this and that but won’t take the 5 minutes to write in about it.
A couple of people calling to complain doesn’t move the government. A few thousand gets attention, like the ubike issue. And seeing us get excluded from one thing after another, makes me feel that we need to be more organized to argue our stand, not just meekly ask nicely. Someone mentioned racism in the USA didn’t go away, sure but they had the rights then, racists won’t change their stripes but it can be made illegal to act on racist thoughts. To do that, you need politicians with balls to take a stand.
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That was me who mentioned that. But you can’t get foreigners to agree very easily on anything here. Many foreigners are content on just letting their spouses do the work of getting them phones, banks and real estate. There are very few ways to get foreigners, onboard without organising. I’ve asked you directly to join my efforts but you’re still upset at the country for how you feel you and other foreigners have been treated.
We all get that, but cool heads prevail and we negotiate and talk.
Once we do that, we can start the slow process of growing, recruiting and brainstorming.
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I agree. I feel like I get a lot back for my Taiwanese taxes compared with Western countries. Not only are tax rates a lot lower, there’s the generous AMT exemptions for offshore income, and there’s no need report offshore assets.
There’s a link there you can use to write them a letter.
I agree that all foreigners are not entitled to every little thing, just like in other countries. It just becomes harder to accept when those little things are related to money, since we residents pay our taxes. After all if it’s “just” $2000, will the Taiwan govt. accept $2000 less in taxes from me?
AFAIU, some of the resident-level major discriminations that we encounter, which we shouldn’t:
- All matters related to taxation, bonuses, access to financial services etc.
- Ability for non white foreigners with proven English speaking ability to teach here
- Enter the country without Covid test results, compared to others
If we fight every little battle we lose the war. It is not even like this money is given. You still need to spend some to get it. The COVID test requirement is much more urgent and hopeless if you need to return after leaving. We need to choose our battles and the media resource if we get any.
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Disagree.
The most common response when some discriminatory policy comes out is “that can’t be the situation…Taiwan is usually so friendly to foreigners”.
I’m thinking that everything needs to be reported and complained about - eventually it will reach a saturation point in which people believe what is actually happening.
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Agree completely Terry.
The people in Taiwan are generally friendly toward foreigners. The government policies are obviously not. We need to become enough MaFan that they realize that excluding us will cost more (in time) than including us, and that only happens when we create critical mass and complain
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Yep most do and are surprised when I say I have no ID. The govt class is more conservative than your average Joe soap. They get some sort of satisfaction at making life a bit rough for immigrants and Westerners I guess since Taiwan is not recognized by our governments, bit of resentment there.
I feel this may be the real reason for the covid test requirement for residents, for instance EU will not permit Taiwanese to visit yet (which is shit but not our fault)
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We need to get a resident family on TV with the father and mother saying they need a test but the kids and spouse don’t. It’s completely ridiculous.
Not to mention the problems it causes for business travel and the risks involved of not being able to get back home and work and run your business !
I really don’t buy that the things all happen 'by accident ', there’s a consistent pattern there of exclusion . I mean it takes a real blatant big red line marker to rule out most foreigners but just let a few that are married to get the vouchers.
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