For all the people making money online: what do you do about taxes?
Do you even bother claiming taxes? Do you need any documents to show how much you made or is a bank statement showing the money that came into the country enough? What about money that’s sitting in a different country, do you need to pay taxes on that money as well?
My money usually ends up in three different countries depending on what I’m doing. All the money I make gets sent to a bank in the U.S., it stays there until I bring it over here. At times, I also send some of it from the States to Canada to pay for my yearly vacation. Do I just have to pay taxes on the money I bring here?
Some money is also in my paypal account although I don’t like putting much money there because of their fees.
Anyway, it’s a very confusing situation and I’m wondering if anyone else is in a similar situation and what they did in regards to taxes.
I don’t even bother… there is supposed to be a statement from companies you work for which gets submitted to the tax office and you would show that as you’re filing taxes. When earning money online or from different countries, or even just receiving cash payments, I have no idea how to show it. If you’ve registered yourself as a business entity its another thing altogether…
If you are an American citizen you’re still required to file taxes (to the IRS) regardless of where or how you earned it.
Take what I say with a grain of salt, it’s all based on what I’ve figured out as I’ve been preparing for the move. I’m not there yet and don’t have firsthand experience, though I am in the home stretch since I only have 6.5 months left on my current contract and expect to be in Taiwan (or somewhere other than the US) next summer. :discodance:
I’m a USA citizen and I’ll be working as an independent contractor for a Canadian company while living in Taiwan.
Canadian tax implications: This I’m the least sure on, but as far as I can figure I’ll owe them nothing since I am neither physically in the country or technically working for a Canadian company (as an independent contractor I work based on a legal entity I create, whether that be simply my SS number from my home country, a DBA, or some more complicated business structure such as an LLC, corp or s-corp).
US tax implications: Based on satisfying foreign residency requirements to qualify for the FEIE, I’ll be liable for the 15% federal rate for Medicaid and Social Security, but no other taxes federally. For state taxes it depends on which state I last had legal residence in, but based on being proactive I should have no state tax liability.
Taiwan tax implications: If I plan on getting an ARC based on this income/employment, I will need to either register a business or register a representative office based on representing the legal entity I created in my home country. There are good posts on this forum about how that’s done and the tax implications. Otherwise, I pretty much am with TL. As far as I can tell if there is a system of reporting the money it’s either so obscure or so convoluted as to be virtually impossible to comply with in practical application.
From what I remember from last time I was at the tax office, you have to report the money but you only pay tax on it if it’s over NT$1 million. I think.
If the money is coming into a Taiwan bank account, then you definitely need to report it as the bank will have already done so. The reporting is pretty easy - I just calculated all the incoming money and told the tax office and they added it to the tax form.
Less than 12 months ago, I was advised by our Taiwanese based taxation accountant that the Taiwan tax code requires you to report online income over 5,000nt/payment.
What does this mean?
Take, for example, my company. If I hire a translator to translate a movie script and it cost me 30,000 nt to translate, I must notify the taxation department of this transaction. If, however, the payment is 4500nt, I needn’t notify the tax department. On the other hand, I will carry that as income rather than an out-going, if I don’t.
The agency I had worked with didnt do that, the reason they gave was that they are not based in Taiwan. I have no idea how to personally do it. My income wasnt that high anyways (I made less than 300,000nt a year) so why bother reporting it?
Hi guys. I am coming to Taiwan soon on a student visa (learning Chinese). However, I do have an offer from a company at home to do some part-time work for them. All the work can be done remotely, so they’re ok with me doing it from Taiwan. If I take up their offer, would I need to declare the income I make from the role, as it will be all earned & paid in my home country? I understand that being on a student visa may make this a messier situation.