Tax obligations for remote work (US citizen, over 90 days in calendar year)

Hello,

I’ve tried looking for similar posts, but couldn’t find an exact match for my situation. I entered Taiwan on 9/6/2020 (on a COVID-19 Special Entry permit, visiting family here) and I’m still currently in Taiwan (meaning I’ve exceeded the 90-day limit for tax exemption for the calendar year), and during this entire time I’ve been working for my US-based company remotely. Several questions:

  1. Am I obligated to pay taxes to Taiwan on my US-earned income? I know technically I’m supposed to, but not sure how Taiwan will know (I’m not trying to evade taxes, but it’s just a bit weird for me to double-pay taxes considering the company I work for has no precense in Taiwan). I’ve also never changed my address in my work HR system (according to my work HR system, I’m still in California)
  2. If I am obligated to pay taxes on my US-earned income during my time in Taiwan, how is the amount calculated? Would I just report the income earned after I arrived in Taiwan? I assume I wouldn’t need to pay taxes to Taiwan for income earned before my arrival.
  3. On that note, are there any good recommendations for tax professionals in Taiwan that could help me answer my questions?

If you are still here next August (and you extend), you could exclude the tw earned income from US tax. If not, and you end up paying taxes in tw, you can take those as a credit on your US taxes.

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Not really weird though. Taiwan, like many (most?) countries, has a territorial tax system under which you are expected to pay taxes if you earn income from work you perform in-country, regardless of whether or not that income was paid to you from an overseas employer. If you stay less than 90 days, Taiwan exempts you from this requirement.

The US, unfortunately, is one of the countries that taxes citizens on their worldwide income. There are some ways to deal with this (the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, tax credits, etc.), but it’s not as optimal or clean as territorial systems.

Also, since you are still officially a resident of California, California will also expect you to pay state income tax on the income you earned while you were working remotely in Taiwan.

But only up to the FEIE limit.