Tax return and what you can claim?

[burnerking]

What can you claim back on taxes? I've heard you can claim your flight ticket (if you can prove it's to your home country to visit family), rent and I've also heard you can claim back on your health insurance. Health insurance is the one I'm unsure about. Does anyone know?

Thanks

[TwoTongues]

In my experience, rent is only claimable if the landlord is paying the tax on it - in other words, only one of you and the landlord has to pay the tax, but if the landlord doesn't pay it then you have to (or rather it's not deductible). A lot of landlords charge an extra 10% on top of the standard rental rate if you will pay directly through your company, and that's because the company will declare it and the landlord has to pay tax as income. So what they usually do is give you the 10% off the rent but then you don't get to deduct it from your taxes - if you did, then the tax office would expect to see a reciprocal income tax payment from the landlord, and things might get hairy.

Seems like semi-legalized shadiness/tax-evasion to me, but I may be wrong about this. Definitely check your lease and/or talk to your real estate agent who got you the place before deducting that.

I was unaware of the ticket cost deduction, if someone could confirm that, I'd really appreciate it.

[sandman]

Never heard of flight tickets being deductible. Doesn't sound plausible to me at all. Same with insurance. Never heard of that being deductible.
Doesn't really matter in any case. Just ask the helpers when you go to file your return. They're generally very helpful.
Are your parents over 65? If so you can get a pretty sweet deduction for them by submitting proof of their age and proof they 'aint dead.

[TwoTongues]

Claim parents over 65? Is that a joke? Even a Westerner? Given my profoundly fucked tax situation this year, I'll claim my mother in a heartbeat and even be willing to dig up my dad and prop him up in the chair next to me, worms and all, like Weekend at Bernies (but not).

[sandman]

Claim parents over 65? Is that a joke? Even a Westerner?

Yup. I needed a wee letter from their solicitor/notary public stating that they are who I say they are, and a household bill with their address on it. Its a decent deduction, too. I do believe the deduction actually increases, too, once they hit 70, but I'm not 100% on that.

[burnerking]

Never heard of flight tickets being deductible. Doesn't sound plausible to me at all. Same with insurance. Never heard of that being deductible.
Doesn't really matter in any case. Just ask the helpers when you go to file your return. They're generally very helpful.
Are your parents over 65? If so you can get a pretty sweet deduction for them by submitting proof of their age and proof they 'aint dead.

I'm pretty sure you can claim on flights - I'll find more info on it.

A colleague has claimed on his insurance and is getting 3,000 NT back - not loads but still... I asked my school about it but they feed me a story. My colleague is claiming since he's been to the tax office and helper told him he could claim on his health insurance. She wrote him a note in chinese to give to my school - my school then handed him a piece of paper which is the receipt. As I said, I asked my school about me claiming and they fed me a line. Not sure if it's shady on their part or my colleague has a different situation.

[scomargo]

As far as I know (and I'm pretty sure I'm right), you can claim both your NHI premiums and your labor insurance premiums. However, like rent, you can only claim these deductions if you choose to itemize your deductions rather than taking the standard deduction.

I'd love to see how flights back home could be deducted. At least the deduction for supporting your parents makes sense since both Taiwanese and foreigners have parents. However, a flight back home would seem to be a special foreigners-only deduction, which doesn't make sense to me.

[Chris]

Claim airfare back home as a deduction? I've never heard of this, but I would LOVE to be able to deduct this if true: I go back to the US every spring.

I've been claiming health insurance ever since I learned about it... last year.

[for-a-samosa]

I claimed my national health insurance costs -- My employer gave me a receipt showing that they deducted insurance fees from my salary, which I gave to the tax office.

Does anybody know about claiming business expenses? I'm wondering if I can claim my cell phone bills. I use the phone a lot for work-related matters and my bills are so darn high.

[TwoTongues]

Can I claim health insurance that I pay in the US (and not NHI)?