The Employment Gold Card Super-Thread

Yes you are correct. You can apply for NHI self-enrollment after you’ve been in the country for 6 months straight, or if you’ve left once for up to 30 days then you’ll be eligible after 6 months plus however many days you left. I did it after having taken one trip for 28 days and I was eligible at 6 months + 28 days.

Are we limited to just one trip up to 30 days, or can those 30 days be a series of trips in and out?

If you are employed by a foreign company, like a US company and you are just working remotely in Taiwan, does this income count?

If you‘re correctly declaring it as Taiwan-sourced income (as it was earned for work performed while physically within Taiwan) and pay Taiwan income taxes on it, they should accept it.

Yeah, did for me. Just need the itemized tax certificate.

Yes, just 1 trip of up to 30 days. If you take a second trip, the clock resets (to the day you got back from your first trip).

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Thanks. Is it correct that that part of the income will be double-taxed? What about investment income (capital gains) or rental income from the US? Will I need to declare it as Taiwan-sourced and pay tax on it?

That depends. If Taiwan has a double-taxation agreement with the country, you might be able to get the tax back from the other country. Many countries have one.

But I think that’s not the case for the US - but I‘ve read here that some US citizens who live abroad do not need to pay taxes in the US because of some exemptions - not sure about all this US tax stuff, though.

That one will fall under the IBT/AMT tax and count as overseas income. You need to file it if it‘s greater than NT$ 1 million per year, but there‘s an exception of 6.7 million per year. Afterwards, 20% flat tax.

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Ha, as a US citizen you’re never off the hook. You can exclude some income from federal taxes if you meet certain requirements, but that’s it.

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As someone who just got the gold card, but have been doing plenty of research, I just want to give a helping and and make sure that we all know the following:
Golden card != Work permit. Different animals with different requirements.

Gold card = You are almost as good as a citizen. You can work anywhere you want BUT, you have 3 years and then you must maintain the same conditions you had when you got it. In my case (Economic) my last salary after these 3 years must be NTD160k.

Work permit: When you apply for a work permit you can ONLY work for that one company. After 5 years you can get a permanent residence, but in the meantime you cannot “easily” go change jobs or whatever as when you have a gold card.

I hope it heps, and if I am wrong and unclear I thank anyone in advance for correcting me.

If you pay taxes in Taiwan, then it counts.

You can extend under a different field/category.
The various ministries can also update their categories and new ministries may had joined when the extension time comes up after 3 years (as was the case with MODA this year).

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I think I’ve been cheated lol Could really be worth 4 times that much at least now. You could buy places in Taichung for 3 million in 98.

Gold card has open work permit rights

It really depends on the work permit. There are several kinds. For example, the Article 51 work permit for permanent residents and certain other people has evne broader work privileges than the work permit included in the Gold Card.

That statement might be a little too broad. I don’t think you can work at a 7-11 with a Gold Card.

You can do anything or even nothing at all.

Edit: It may not be ok to do full time blue collar jobs. Talk to an official or lawyer.

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You can certainly do professional work in your field. It seems to also be OK to do professional work in other gold card fields although some Ministries like Culture have different views on this. It is almost certainly not OK to do other kinds of non-professional work although you may well get away with it in practice.

I have never heard of a Gold Card holder getting in trouble for working out of scope. Talk to a lawyer if you have questions.

You are currently allowed to do nothing. If people keep talking about it, that might change.

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I hope it does change. It’s quite stupid as is honestly. At the very least they shouldn’t be allowed to renew if they didn’t hold a job in the first term.

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I suppose ideally in that case, Taiwan just copies the Philippines’ SRRV. There’s not a lot of downsides to having rich, retired foreigners show up and spend all their retirement money in Taiwan’s local economy instead of somewhere else.