Taxes and Salary

It was the end of May, and in Taiwan, that's tax time. Whee. Fortunately, doing taxes in Taiwan is orders of magnitude easier than the crazy tax forms in Canada or the USA. Still, I'd rather be grating my knuckles like cheese over a snail pizza.

This year, I almost got investigated at NTAT (the National Tax Authority, Taipei region) when they looked at my tax history.

"Is anyone at this company giving you money in Canada or the USA?"

Essentially, they were asking me if this company (which has the words "North American" in its name) was paying me separately outside the country. I didn't really understand why they were suspicious and asking (in a roundabout way) if I had any foreign/external sources of income that weren't reported on the tax form ... until they pulled up my 2006 income tax records and compared the incomes for me to see. Then they started asking why the discrepancy in income, and questioned my choice of employment.

"But ... you went from this salary to this salary?? It's so much less! Why would you do that??"

I simply told them that was about to change again.

The last time I was questioned for choice of company to work for was when I told my buddy how much I was making after moving to California. (Of course, my decision then involved other factors not pertaining to my current case at all.)