Foreign tax rate hurts
I have been working as a National Science Council postdoctoral fellow at a university since March 2007. I have been working in the same institute in the same position for about 26 months. I will leave Taiwan at the end of next month. Now I have to pay 20 percent tax without any consideration of my family expenditure, as I will leave this year before 183 working days.
I was living with my wife and seven-year-old son, who was studying in second grade in an elementary school in Taiwan. In addition to all other subjects, he learned excellent Mandarin Chinese like a Taiwanese kid, thanks to all of his teachers and friends. But this extra tax system has forced me to withdraw my son from the school and send him and my wife back to my country. He loves his school very much and before leaving he was crying for his school and friends.
He repeatedly told me: “Dad, I want to leave Taiwan with you in June, after I finish this semester.”
But practically, the living and education cost for a kid is two to three times more than an adult. Paying 20 percent tax at a flat rate from my limited income, it was impossible for me to maintain me and my two family members in Taiwan. Still I need to support them in my country, as they are 100 percent dependent on my income.
As a foreigner I did not know the details about the tax rules in Taiwan. When I came to Taiwan, I thought foreigners had to work for a minimum of 183 days to be eligible for tax exemption just once, not for every new tax year.
I would like to appeal to the government of Taiwan to reconsider this tax policy.
Let us cover our family costs first. Take the 20 percent tax after deducting living expenses for family members in a tax year when a foreigner is unable to work for 183 days, but who has already worked and paid taxes for at least one year here.
We know it is very little money for the government of Taiwan, but it is very important for people like us, with limited income and a heavy family burden, in this time of global economic hardship. Like all Taiwanese, we foreigners who are working in Taiwan also suffer from the economic problems here and abroad. Our humble appeal to the government of Taiwan is that they kindly consider the matter sympathetically on the basis of practical reasons and the difficult problems we are facing in life.
Taiwan’s democracy is wonderful and excellent. As foreigners, my family has enjoyed a nice working and social environment in Taiwan. My son, especially, enjoyed such a nice environment in his elementary school, which he will never forget. He would be a good public ambassador for Taiwan in my country and abroad. The only thing that pains me is that my son had to leave his school at the beginning of the second semester because of this extra tax burden.
BAHANUR RAHMAN
Taoyuan
Feedback for Tsai
When Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took power, I was impressed — she seemed smart and worldly. But I am less sure now, given some of her recent rhetoric.
I think one of Tsai’s problems is that she is proving to be something of a one-trick pony, with her acerbic diatribes against the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), mantled in gushy, facile populism.
Recently she claimed that Taiwan needs “the power of the people from the grassroots upward to fuel a social revolution” (“DPP wraps up sit-in demonstration,” May 19, page 1). Her recommendation borders on the absurd, for if there is one populace that is decidedly not likely to launch a revolution any time soon, it is the Taiwanese.
In a similarly hyperbolic vein, on May 2, Tsai said that the freedom to assemble is the people’s “last line of defense.” While appealing as hype, we see here a worrisome propensity for alarmist imagery, and in any case a more accurate view would be that the freedom to assemble is one line of defense among many that a democracy makes available to its citizens, any of which might come “first,” “last” or “in media res.”
Along with these sentiments, Tsai urges a one-size-fits-all referendum answer to Taiwan’s political problems. Again her exhortation is counter-productive and unrealistic, for governments worldwide regularly make decisions without such substantial civic input or measures. This is not to deride the 23 million folks in Taiwan, but there are decisions on which their aggregate input will not be necessary, and the fact is that decision-making like this is essential to the very idea of constitutional democracy (I refer the reader to James Madison’s Federalist No. 10).
In sum, Tsai’s views sometimes sound at best like something espoused by an ancient Greek landowner gathering at the agora, or worse, like the heated speechifying of a member of the Students for a Democratic Society or the toe-the-line oratory of a Soviet apparatchik. What is needed are the creative, constructive recommendations of an insightful contemporary leader.
None of the above is meant to imply that Tsai’s complaints might not be valid. It is only to suggest that she attend to them in more pragmatic ways.
The idea of grassroots support has been mentioned, and it seems that this is a golden opportunity for the DPP to — with the assent of the people — effect needed changes in Taiwan. But rather than vain hopes for a “revolution,” what is needed are sensible, inventive, on-the-ground efforts that will aid the people in practical ways, inform them about political realities and changing conditions, and involve them in the betterment of their country. Everything would follow from there. Now that’s power to the people.
Unbridled agitation and choleric broadsides will only lead to dead ends in Taiwan. My personal hope is that rather than such foment, the DPP and the other parties and civic groups in Taiwan will begin to create sounder, saner, more accommodating, judicious and productive dialog.
DAVID PENDERY
Taipei City
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