What are the downsides of pursuing US-Taiwan dual citizenship?

[Hayashi]

@tando

nhi doesn’t care what kind of residency you have. once you become eligible to join on some residencyi, your obligation to pay begins regrdless of you apply for your nhi card or not.

Very good to know. In my case, as a NWOHR applying for HHR for the first time (under the new proposed law which eliminates the 1-year required stay on the TARC), then I understand that I will become eligible after 6 months of continuous residency.

@tando

once you become eligible to join on some residencyi, your obligation to pay begins regrdless of you apply for your nhi card or not. if you don’t apply, they don’t send you a bill, but your payment is just accumulated, and at some point, you have to pay all.

If you have an obligation to pay, but then move overseas for several years, you can simply apply to suspend NHI coverage, and suspend your obligation to pay, right? Then later, when you resume, you don’t have to pay for the several-years period you missed, but you then have to wait for 6 months (without NHI payments and without NHI coverage), then after 6 months you can and must pay into NHI again, right?

@tando

if you are not eligible to join nhi, you don’t need to pay anything.

OK, so let’s consider this example case (maybe similar to my case in the future):

1. Enter Taiwan on NWOHR passport for a short-term stay.
2. Rent apartment for 3 months and get rental contract.
3. Use rental contract to establish HHR at rental apartment address.
4. Live for 3 months at apartment address. Because this is less than 6 months, no obligation to pay NHI is incurred yet.
5. After 3 months, apply for moving-out procedure at HHR office. (Not sure about this)
6. No need to apply to suspend NHI payments, because I didn’t yet qualify. No payment obligation to NHI.
7. Leave Taiwan.
8. Repeat steps 1-7 as many times as desired for multiple short-term stays (with HHR registration), each stay less than 6 months. In this case, is it correct that no obligation to pay NHI is incurred because every short-term stay (with HHR registration) is less than 6 months, therefore not qualifying for NHI?

(In practice I would probably only register HHR during the first 3-month residency, in order to establish my first 戶籍 and to permanently change my status from 無戶籍國民 to 有戶籍國民, and for later short-term stays I wouldn’t need to register HHR again.)

When ready to live long-term in Taiwan, then I would:

1. Enter Taiwan on Taiwan passport.
2. Rent apartment.
3. Register HHR there.
4. Live for more than 6 months (not paying NHI during these 6 months because I am not yet qualified for NHI).
5. Qualify for NHI after 6 months pass, starting with the 7th month.
6. Start paying NHI from 7th month.
7. Able to use NHI from 7th month.
8. If leaving Taiwan for a long time, then apply to suspend NHI coverage and payments.
9. Upon return to Taiwan (after a long overseas stay of more than 2 years), must again wait 6 months without NHI, then again start paying NHI from 7th month. No back-payment of NHI (for the period of time not in Taiwan) is needed because I applied to suspend NHI coverage and payments during that time.
10. Upon return to Taiwan (after a short overseas stay of less than 2 years), you can enroll again immediately in NHI. In this case, do you need to pay NHI for the time when you were not in Taiwan during the short overseas stay? (I think you have to back-pay if your overseas stay was less than 6 months and you want to resume immediately.)

Does that sound right? Any corrections?