Hi guys, may I ask if there’s any of you guys that needed to pay taxes even if you’re not an employee in Taiwan?
I just graduated recently and haven’t worked for any company yet, tho I still received the Tax & Non-withholding tax statement from CTBC. So I guess it’s bcuz I have the foreign account in CTBC bank and being counted as investors here. Should I go to CTBC or tax office to pay for it? Thanks.
It’s because you earn interest in your bank account and this money is partially tax withheld.
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No. The tax has already been withheld, probably at the you’re-a-foreigner rate of 20%. That’s what these statements are about.
If you file a tax return next year, any excess withheld tax should be incorporated into that.
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I see. That explains. Thank you.
I have never had any tax withheld from any of my employers in Taiwan
My main employer, a buxiban, for god knows what reason went to the tax office when I told him I was leaving Taiwan. I tried to tell him there was no need but he wouldn’t listen.
Anyway it was clearly dumb and dumber my boss, an employee at the tax office. The tax office told him he should have been withholding tax from my salary. So he paid the tax office the amount he was told he should have withheld even thought he had never withheld any. He then had the gal to ask me to pay him that amount. I refused.
This was all in April last year. I’ve just done my taxes and my salary downloaded with withholding amounts, I just changed all these to 0 because I did not have tax withheld in actual fact. and I don’t want to be caught up in employer BS.
Will this be a problem?
So you want to pay the tax yourself even though you boss already paid it?
I don’t owe any. And even if I did, I don’t want to take money from him.
And I don’t want my ex-boss to come to me asking for the money again, he suggested he would. I want him to deal with that with the tax office cos it was them that made this issue.
If you werent resident 180 days, how could you not owe any?
Because spouses file together and my spouse has household registration and I filed with him being the ‘main taxpayer’. The tax office recommended me to file this way.
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Ok, i get it. Your old boss was stupid.
I would probably just get the money back and return it to the boss because i wouldnt want to deal with the tax office maybe contacting me at a later date.
However, i understand why you dont want to do that because this is a problem 100 percent caused by him.
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yes, in the case of foreign spouses of nationals with HHR, 100% best approach is to file jointly via the national spouse (I mean, it’s mandatory to file jointly anyways once married besides the first year of marriage) since the filing goes through (God knows why) the HHRO and not directly from the NTB, just easier, just done mine via my wife. Hate that I can’t see directly how much I owe by myself, but it is much faster.
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I didn’t know that? I just popped in our citizen digital certificates and clicked next next next until it was done 
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I always file with my wife with me as the main taxpayer and her as the spouse. We did that because i always had questions so we wanted to file in the foreigner tax dept. I dont understand the advantages of doing it the other way.
It only really matters if you don’t have household registration and left Taiwan before Mayish permanently (you become non-resident).
If you are in this situation you are better off filing under the spouse with household registration as they only need to be in Taiwan for 1 month to be a tax-resident if you have household registration. Only the ‘main taxpayer’s’ residency matters
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basically, as EY said during a tax event organised by the gold card office, HHRO doesn’t check shit, they literally just send everything to NTB, they compute, set the tax due, send the bill, peace.
For foreigners NTB they “check”.
Good to know.
So I only have to discuss my tax return in detail each year with the tax office because I am an unmarried foreigner? If I married a local and filed as their spouse, they just would stop caring about what I submit…? 
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That was the gist of the conversation. This high up at EY Tw really just made us understand: your spouse is a local? File through him/her, 0% fucks given
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Guess there is a conversation I should be having with my girlfriend then! 
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