The Employment Gold Card Super-Thread

Legal Visa & Residency
3861

What they wrote is wrong - in that situation, you need to pay tax for income earned in Taiwan at the non-resident rate with zero deductions/exemptions, which sucks.

This isn’t right either. You could plausibly have a gold card and live in Taiwan (up to 182 days) without being a tax resident, and you could plausibly have a gold card and live in Taiwan without being required to pay taxes at all (up to 90 days). The two things (having a gold card and being considered tax resident) aren’t really connected.

3862

Thanks - this aligns with the information I’ve seen online. Six months would have been amazing.

3863

The thing with the various double taxation treaties is that they introduce limits to the laws in the participating countries: So while in principle everyone staying in Taiwan longer than 90 days will have to pay taxes, a double taxation treaty might restrict this regulation from being applied.

However, the rules with those double taxation treaties are much less easy to follow. They highly depend on the agreement and might leave some room for interpretation. So they are usually impossible to navigate without the help of professional tax advisors and/or lawyers. In some cases, the local tax authorities might actually be able to help - but they might be biased in some way.

So in theory, there could be some situations where someone stays in Taiwan for an entire year and doesn’t have to pay taxes here, but rather in their home country if there is a double taxation treaty in place which allows that and basically acts as a limit to Taiwan‘s tax laws.

For example, see the taxation treaty between the UK and Taiwan:

a) he shall be deemed to be a resident only of the territory in which he has a permanent home available to him; if he has a permanent home available to him in both territories, he shall be deemed to be a resident only of the territory with which his personal and economic relations are closer (centre of vital interests);

b) if the territory in which he has his centre of vital interests cannot be determined, or if he does not have a permanent home available to him in either territory, he shall be deemed to be a resident only of the territory in which he has an habitual abode;

c) if the individual has an habitual abode in both territories or in neither of them, the competent authorities of the territories shall settle the question by mutual agreement.

That means if you would be liable to pay taxes in both the UK and Taiwan (important: If you‘re not a resident of the UK and Taiwan at the same time, the treaty won’t even be applied!), the taxation treaty would answer the question in which country you actually need to pay taxes. If you still have a permanent home in the UK and your „center of vital interest“ clearly lays in the UK, you can stay in Taiwan tax free and pay taxes in the UK as long as you want.

However, if the Taiwanese authorities doubt that (maybe by arguing that you spent the majority of the year in Taiwan), it might easily end up with the situation ( see part c) where it‘s basically up to the tax authorities to make a decision (and the taxpayer potentially using a lawyer to object that decision).

Also, the tax treaties usually contain some other specifics and exceptions (for example that other rules might apply when having a local employer in only one of the countries) which can easily introduce a situation where you would still need to pay taxes in another country.

So it’s really not that easy, unfortunately…

1 Like
3864

Thanks for the detailed reply!

3865

What’s considered to be “income earned in Taiwan”? Salary and business income presumably? How about if I have a company overseas, and my clients are foreign companies (not Taiwanese)? Will I have to pay some sort of tax?

3866

Basically, all income you receive for work performed in Taiwan is considered “Taiwan-sourced income”.

For more information, see:

In short: If the company is a legal entity, dividend payments might count as “overseas income” and might be tax-free in Taiwan (but you’ll most likely be taxed at source). Salary payments, on the other hand, would count as “taiwan-sourced income” if you work from Taiwan.

Also, the tax authorities could demand that the company (even if overseas) files a tax return in Taiwan for the income they earned in Taiwan (e.g. through the labor of Taiwan-based employees). And there are some laws against overseas shell companies which could be considered as Taiwanese companies in some situations. In practice, I am not sure if the tax authorities would actually follow through on these two issues especially for small to medium companies.

As always, seek professional advice when in doubt.

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3867

Re: NHI 6-month waiting period, it is defined as from the date you entered Taiwan, on that corresponding date 6 months later, you become eligible. I noticed that if you leave, then your waiting period is paused (example on taiwangoldcard.com states if you leave for one month, then you’re now eligible after seven months) Would it be an additional month if I leave for just 3 or 4 days? Are we looking at waiting til the date of original entry one month later?

And as ridiculous as it sounds, we are entering on July 29. If it is 7 months then I’m looking at Feb 29 which doesn’t exist lol. I’m just that means March 1 is fine but with my luck and Taiwan bureaucracy I’ll have to wait one more month…or even until the next leap year!!

Alright just kidding on that last paragraph. But does anyone have actual knowledge of how the waiting period dates work? I had also heard of a possible exception for “work travel.” Is this true? Thanks!

3868

In my case when I came to Taiwan on the Gold Card I took up employment a month after entry and got NHI at that point.

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3869

Thanks! But I was referring to a “work” exception to the travel limitations. Edited my post to be more clear.

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3870

Good luck proving your “work travel”. I’m pretty sure the clerk will either deny that this rule ever existed, even if it does, because it’s mafan or give you some “I need a notarised copy of blablabla from office A, then a stamp from office B, then blablabla” crap that would keep you busy enough until the end of the month anyway.

Jokes apart, my suggestion to you and to anyone in this situation is try your luck after 6 months plus one day at your nearest NHI branch. Don’t ask don’t tell. Hand over passport and Gold Card and say that you are applying for the NHI card. Let them do the checking and take it from there.

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3871

That’s really unlikely to work - their system is directly linked to immigration and they check the list of your entry and exit dates and count that it’s been six months.

When I applied in 2020, NHI printed out my entry and exit dates going back to my first entry in 2016 (despite much of that being before I had an ARC, and some of it being on a previous passport).

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3872

I didn’t say that this would “work” as a loophole or what. I only said that, faced with contradictory and unclear information as always, the best thing IMO is to just go as scheduled and see what happens.

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3873

Just got an approval for my Gold Card today.

2022.06.15 Application
06.17 Review by the Workforce Development Agency
06.24 Consulting with Ministry of Science and Technology
06.29 Review by the Workforce Development Agency
07.05 Passport Inspection at the Bureau of Consular Affairs or Overseas Missions of R.O.C. (Taiwan)

I applied under Field of Science and Technology though I qualified for the Field of Economy as well. The entire process was extremely smooth and took 20 days from application submission to final approval. Happy to answer if there are any questions from fellow members.

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3874

Fair enough. I’ll keep this in mind…also kinda leaning towards just sucking it up and staying for the first 6 months. Hard for us to do but if we have to we’ll manage lol

3875

I went to the NHI office recently as it had been 6 months since I entered Taiwan. They told me that it’s actually 6 months from the issue date on my ARC/gold card. This date was more than a month after I entered Taiwan, as I changed addresses and got an updated gold card then. This makes no sense to me whatsoever :joy:.

That said, they took all my paperwork and said that they’d submit it for me in a month when I became eligible, so I don’t need to go back. So…hopefully that will work out? :man_shrugging:

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3876

This is exactly why I say “go to the NHI branch, give them passport and Gold Card and hear what they say” @projectmaximus :joy: :rofl: In this case, they didn’t even bother checking entry/exit dates but just took the Gold Card as reference. I feel for you @yam but I’m also LOLing loud.

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3877

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it should be counted since you first became legally resident, no? In this case, “legally resident” means something like “inside Taiwan and holding an ARC”.

Assuming you came here with a gold card and the authorization letter thing, it sounds to me that the relevant date should be when you first entered Taiwan, or at the latest when your first gold card was printed if that was later (I would assume that the gold card was printed before you entered Taiwan anyway). For people applying for and receiving the card inside Taiwan, the six-month waiting period indeed starts when the card is issued.

Anyway, I think the time you were here under the first gold card should definitely also be included and the waiting period shouldn’t be based on the issue date of your current card. Up to you if you want to go back and query that or just wait another month for NHI, I guess.

You can probably find something about this in the NHI regulations/documentation. Some of it seems to suggest six months from date of entry, but then the National Health Insurance Act says this:

Article 9
With the exception of individuals mentioned in the previous article, any person who has an alien resident certificate in the Taiwan area must meet one of the following requirements in order to become the beneficiaries of this Insurance:

  1. Those who have established a registered domicile in Taiwan for at least six months.
  2. Those with a regular employer.
  3. Newborns in the Taiwan area.

Maybe it’s open to interpretation what “have established a registered domicile in Taiwan” means? Presumably the initial address on the first gold card also counts, but I’m not sure.

This situation must have come up a few times before though. I think it’s quite common for people to enter then update their address later? Maybe @fifieldt knows more?

3879

I wish he did :frowning: In this case it looks like it does, as you say, depend on what ‘registered domicile’ means for a foreign national … but I am not sure where that is defined in Taiwan law. Maybe @yyy might know…

3880

The Chinese text is

一、在臺居留滿六個月。

which simply means the person has lived/resided (but not merely stayed, as that would be 停留) in Taiwan for six months.

If they really want to specify domicile they should use 住 as in 住所, as opposed to residence which is 居所. However, a residence can be a domicile under certain conditions.

Civil Code:

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3881

Good luck man!! Hope it works for you, and hoping we don’t have the same issues. I’m not expecting to change my address (using a relative’s address and planning to move around to try out different hotels and short-term rentals so there really isn’t any other permanent address I anticipate switching to)

1 Like