Hello,
I am a dual national and last May reclaimed my citizenship here in Taiwan. I have been teaching as an English teacher and have asked my employers about claiming taxes. All of them say that I don’t need to pay any taxes (because they were kindergartens) and I don’t have to file anything at all (no paperwork). This seems quite odd because I would think I would at LEAST have to provide information on my income this past year.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
If you have ROC income, you should pay ROC taxes. In fact, you are essentially subject to the same income tax liability whether you are a local ROC citizen or a foreigner. See Article 7 of the Income Tax Law for details.
In response to other inquiries in this FORUM, I have also previously clarified that for foreigners, the Tax Department is not really concerned with whether you have a Work Permit or not.
Since you have stated that you are an ROC citizen, then you need not be bothered about this Work Permit problem anyway.
Thanks for your reply. However, as far as I know, I have not been registered at any of the schools I worked for previously. Also, I have been told kindergartens are tax free. So, do I still have to fill out any forms or pay taxes?
In terms of a general rule, the ROC tax authorities are interested in seeing that you are supporting yourself with an adequate income, and that you are paying taxes on that income.
Hence, to be safe and to meet the minimum requirements, you should declare a reasonable level of income and pay tax on it.
The alternative is that some day in the future the tax authorities will arbitrarily decide that you owe “back taxes”, and they will assess you an amount of tax due. I have heard of this happening many times. If such “arguments” or “differences of opinion” do actually occur, indeed it is the taxpayer who usually loses.
To my knowledge, the Ministry of Finance has never ruled that salary income from kindergartens is tax-free.
For all technical tax questions on your own individual situation, I strongly suggest that you visit your local tax office in the ROC. With a few minor exceptions, I have found that the advice and counseling they offer is quite good.