how did bloomberg got to know this?
I actually forwarded the thread to a few media outlets at the time actually… I don’t know if it was me or who.
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should we try the same for this?
Actually more in line with bloomberg’s biz than fecking bikes…
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I’ve previously done that for things like the stimulus vouchers and tax rebate, but the only one where an international story was subsequently published in one of the outlets I wrote to (not claiming full credit though) was when Taiwan was locking up migrant workers during COVID.
The definition of “domicile” in Taiwan probably makes for a far less interesting story, though…
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but not about tax discrimination and fraudulent tax declarations BY TAXATION BUREAU ORDERS! coz that’s what it is.
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Yeh I’m not claiming credit either. I got no reply (that I know of)
It’s worth a try…
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I guess the most “interesting” thing here (i.e., the thing that affects the most foreigners living in Taiwan, affects them financially, and is clearly discriminatory) is that resident foreigners are considered non-tax-resident until they’ve been here 183 days each year, despite the “R” in A(P)RC.
I suspect that a lot of people don’t much care about another country code being listed on their tax withholding certificates (if they’ve even noticed), but the underlying rule adversely affects residents arriving in the second half of the year or leaving in the first half of the year (higher tax rate) as well as leads many employers to withhold excessive tax (interest-free loan to the government for >1 year, every year). This might be something more people could be motivated to complain about? Is this covered by your complaint to the Control Yuan, @Mataiou?
Also wondering: Are there any other countries that consider residents non-resident until they’ve been here 183 days? I don’t think I’ve come across this situation before arriving in Taiwan, but I haven’t really looked into it either. I think in previous places I’ve lived, I was taxed as a resident when I appeared to be resident there (i.e., once I’d moved there, had an apartment and job and so on, and that was my regular “home”).
Problem is, that would involve changing the Income Tax Act…
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my complaint is, as u can see in the full text I submitted to them, all ecompassing. As long as you have a residence permit to stay more than 1 yr, then u have domicile and hence tax resident, unless u prove otherwise.
The law stems from when foreigners in Taiwan didn’t have any form of permanent residency or residency more than 1 year.
Also it wasn’t changed as it doesn’t need to be. What needs to be changed is the tax office and they way they read the law.
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u don’t, it is interpretation. These mofos interpret domicile as having HHR, which is not the case as ruled already by the Supreme Court in the 90s and, as we found out, also in other laws.
art. 7 par 2 line 1 already provides the proper definition for tax residents who are domiciled, the tax bureau just needs to interpret domiciled correctly and not that HHR BS.
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Oh, that’s good. I thought there was more in there about less than vs. more than 183 days, but I haven’t read the whole thing in a couple of years. Thanks for the correction!
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Many like to call themselves “foreign residents” and then complain about how the tax office doesn’t see them as domiciled…
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When was that? My German friend at TUV in 1991 got 3 year work ARC. I had a 3 year ARC period back then as well.
first draft was in 1943 for the Income tax ac, article 7 in particular was amended in 1977 and never amended again.
There u go
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Thanks. I’ve never bothered to look at it. I only knew back in the 90’s you needed an exit visa and an entry visa. To get an exit visa you had to go to the tax office first to get a tax paper. Every six months same routine, get tax doc apply for exit visa then apply for entry visa. So much fun with the Foreign Affairs Police.
The lass in the tax office is right, where do you work? I reply me? Work? Look miss here is my ARC which is stamped not allowed to work in Taiwan so I have no income and no job.
What do you do for money then she asks? I replied I married a rich Taiwanese lass and am a home husband raising my son.
She replies this so wrong in Chinese culture a man has to provide for the family. My reply was that this is the new age where men marry for money and live a life of being kept in luxury. This scrambled her sensibilities and the look of this does not compute come on her face. I said look just enter my wife’s ID card into your tax system. Oh she says there you are listed as a dependent. Yeah that’s me the non working no income poor white foreigner who enjoys overseas strips, playing golf several days a week, club memberships. Anyway I ask can you imagine you get a spouse visa for USA or Australia etc and are then told you are not allowed to work. You would be screaming discrimination and racism. Don’t blame me for not being allowed to work.
She prints out my tax paper so I can get an exit visa.
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For the third or fourth (fifth?) time, you’re not the arbiter of English language usage in this discussion, on Forumosa, or among the entire community of foreigners living in Taiwan. You already have your very own thread for these complaints:
Everybody who’s been following this discussion knows that you don’t like the term “foreign residents” because you think it means “residents of somewhere else”. That’s fine - you don’t need to use it. As has already been explained to you, others among us see it to mean “residents (of Taiwan) who are foreign”. I like having “residents” at the end because I think it emphasizes that we live here (rather than emphasizing that we’re foreign/“other”), but I’ve acknowledged your interpretation in a previous post and told you I can see where you’re coming from, so perhaps you could do the same rather than repeatedly trying to “correct” the language of other educated native speakers over what’s a matter of opinion/interpretation.
For me personally, if I’m using “foreign residents”, I usually try to remove the potential ambiguity by writing “foreign residents of Taiwan” on first use. Sometimes I write “resident foreigners” instead, but whatever term we’re using we agree that there’s something wrong with the current situation, and maybe it’s more productive to focus on that than repeatedly trying to sow disagreement/argument over a minor language point you don’t like.
I also put it to you that the Taiwanese government/banks couldn’t care less what term we’re using - whether we write “foreign resident” or “resident foreigner” or whatever else, they’re still going to continue with this unless we’re successful in working together to do something about it (and the odds already seem stacked against us).
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Maybe we should change it to foreign dissidents instead. 
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So . . .www.foreigndissidentosa.com? 
Guy
