my school got my “witholding and non-witholding tax statement”
I arrived in Taiwan in January of last year, had a couple of short trips away but stayed for maybe 320 days of the year in Taiwan. I got an ARC in May and began paying taxes. I would estimate that about 280000 NT was paid to me since I got my ARC (this is what was my reported earnings were).
however on my form it says my total amount paid was 13, which I’m assuming is in $NT.
it also says that i didn’t stay in the country for over 183 days.
My co-teacher who is in a almost identical situation to me hasn’t even recieved this form, although my school has for all the other foriegn teachers.
Is there something I am missing here? My school seem to have as little clue as I have.
I have asked them to look into but thought I’d check here to incase anyone else can help.
I don’t have any info for you. I’m in a similar situation now and hope that someone else with more Taiwan tax experience will read and help out. Maybe a foreigner who owns a buxiban who had to learn the rules (or anyone else who knows).
In short, I worked for a well-known buxiban last year who is refusing to give me a tax statement now (to show taxes paid). They’re saying that any paycheck stubs that I might have received are all that they create. Secondly, they are saying that while I paid 20%, none of it is refundable because I haven’t been in the country for 183 days (which is wrong - far beyond 183 days). My questions:
Must all legitimate businesses issue tax statements to its employees, whether full- or part-time, salary or hourly?
Need a clarification of the “183 day” rule. In order for the excess tax (part of the 20%) to be refundable to me, did I have to work for the same employer for 183 days OR only be in Taiwan for 183 days?
Lastly, if the buxiban will not cooperate and will not issue the tax statement to me, what reasonable courses of action do I have?
Any statement that a company does not have to give you tax statements is utter and complete B.S.
The nice ladies in the Tax Office are happy to make a few phone calls to your boss to “explain” the tax laws. They did so for me on numerous occasions when I was living in Taiwan (like suggesting to the accountant that white-out wasn’t really appropriate for tax documents). In the case of no withholding statement being issued, it’s a little trickier, because while they will agree to call up the company in question, they will ask you to state how much income you had from that company and then you are liable for taxes on that amount. Now, just how vigorously they go after that company after they have the tax money from you is another question…you would have to follow up frequently and loudly, most likely.
The tax office seems to take a fairly lenient view on certain things, for example, my former employer who “forgot” to withhold taxes (after telling me on tape that he was withholding and forwarding taxes to the authorities monthly) with the result that I arrived at the Tax Office with a withholding statement that stated I had had zero tax withheld. To my knowledge, they never went after him (more’s the pity, they could have found all sorts of fascinating things.)
The 183 day rule should not have anything to do with being with the same employer AFAIK. However, it might have to do with being on an (any) ARC versus a tourist visa. Your “clock” might have started in May, and you may have inadvertently stayed out of the country long enough to not make 183 days…??
The only exception to not withholding might possibly be if you are working as a lecturer vs. an employee (category “gao3fei4” or one of the other weird categories instead of “wages”). But even then you are supposed to get a tax form from the person paying you money, even if it says zero taxes were withheld.
The nice ladies in the Tax Office in Taipei at least are indeed your friends. They’ll be glad to get on your employer’s butt for you. Just be careful about saying how much you made. In your cases, if they’re claiming you don’t have 183 days, you have a lot at stake as they will eat your 20% and you’ll never see it again, so it might be worthwhile checking it out.
I don’t know if this helps you out at all, but it solved my problem.
The statement I was given by my boss (who is Taiwanese) was actually my tax statement for my bank account and my salary account statement came a few days later. Although I still can’t beleive that my boss didn’t know this given she can obviously read the thing (it was all in Chinese so meant nothing to me) and she has been running this school for 6 years with foriegn teachers so surely she should know what the tax statement looks like (they were completely different papers) :loco:
[quote=“ironlady”]Any statement that a company does not have to give you tax statements is utter and complete B.S.
The nice ladies in the Tax Office are happy to make a few phone calls to your boss to “explain” the tax laws. They did so for me on numerous occasions when I was living in Taiwan … [/quote]
Can you direct me to the “ladies” in question? Think I’d like to pay them a visit.
Need a clarification of the “183 day” rule. In order for the excess tax (part of the 20%) to be refundable to me, did I have to work for the same employer for 183 days OR only be in Taiwan for 183 days?
[/quote]
It’s total time in Taiwan, nothing to do with the employer. The tax people just look at the entry/exit stamps in your passport and add up the days.[/quote]
Correct. If you tell the tax authority the situation they will help you sort it out. They’re at 1 Zhonghua Lu in Taipei, up at the Zhongxiao end, can’t miss it.
taoyuan tax office is slooooowww, but becoming more helpful mugato …
it will take about 6 months to get your $$$ back once you file, so get it in as soon as you have all the papers required. if you are lucky, the ladies might help you fill it out. (in chung li, they did it for me every year. that was the easiest.)
I posted above about a buxiban that I worked for that will not give me a tax statement.
The buxiban, after first telling me I was not due a refund, is now saying that they will themselves refund to me any excess tax that I paid (20% - 6 % legitimate tax = 14% refund). Apparently something is fishy.
I’m not interested in a crusade here, but I also am not into being caned or hung upside down by my toes or whatever. If you had worked for a school legitimately, complete with ARC, and they said this to you at tax time, what would you think/do?
I would march into the tax office EARLY (not the last day, they are swamped with people then) and explain that my employer will not give me the document. Show your ARC. Helpfully give them the phone number. (You might make a point of asking for the phone number and the name of the accounting lady at your school as a sort of illustration of what will happen if they don’t manage to “find” the document in question.)
Based on what my ex-boss told me (and, gosh, he should know…) there are considerable fines possible (I say possible again because AFAIK they are not always imposed) for companies who fiddle around with tax docs in this way or for those who fail to withhold in a timely manner.
Any refund of tax should be between you and the government. Sounds to me like the school “didn’t get around” to withholding…???
[quote]The buxiban, after first telling me I was not due a refund, is now saying that they will themselves refund to me any excess tax that I paid (20% - 6 % legitimate tax = 14% refund). Apparently something is fishy.
[/quote]
Sounds like your “tax” never made it to the tax office - at least not all of it. This would probably explain the difficulty in getting said bit of paper.
This little hiccup might be a good indication of what might lay ahead. Once your employer loses face (or perhaps just before) it might be good to find another laoban (boss).
I know of one laoban that had teachers working with no ARCs and then when she ran into problems with the teachers threatended to call the police and dob them in (tell on them).
