2023 Regulations on Taiwan Online Sellers

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From 2023, Taiwan companies are obliged to proceed the registration of online sales within the specific period at Taxation Bureau. The company official website shall disclose the “Company Name” and “Uniform Invoice Number” clearly. The companies and e-commerce platforms will be informed such notice by Taxation Bureau shortly after.  Kindly remind that the companies engaging in online sales shall be aware of the validity of change of tax ID registration and comply with the related laws and regulations, or the violators will be imposed with the fine from TWD 1,500 to TWD 15,000 and punished for each offense.

 

In addition, for individuals who engage in online sales for the profit-seeking purpose, the tax ID is required to be registered for those who reach the tax threshold (monthly sales of labour forces more than TWD 4,000 or sales of goods more than TWD 80,000). All online sales entities shall be complied with the new policy (registration of network ID and IP) at the next year. For those who doesn’t reach the tax threshold, the registration can be exempted, regardless of the new policy.

 

For “Registration” cases

Sales Entity Procedure
Individual

(with online sales)

 Proceed the tax ID registration at Taxation Bureau directly.

 
Sole proprietorship and Partnership

(with online sales)

 Proceed the tax ID registration at Taxation Bureau directly.

 
Company limed

(with online sales)

 Upon the approval of company registration from MOEA, it is required to apply for the online sales registration at Taxation Bureau within 15 days from the date of tax ID registration.
Company limed by shares

(with online sales)

 Upon the approval of company registration from MOEA, it is required to apply for the online sales registration at Taxation Bureau within 15 days from the date of tax ID registration.
Branch office

(with online sales)

 Upon the approval of company registration from MOEA, it is required to apply for the online sales registration at Taxation Bureau within 15 days from the date of tax ID registration.

 

For “Change of Registration” cases

Sales Entity Procedure
With tax ID registration (for physical sales, instead of online sales) to plan engaging in online sales from 01/01/2023 Proceed the change within 15 days from the date of the occurrence of online sales.
With tax ID registration (for online sales) engaging in online sales already The change shall be proceeded within 15 days from 01/01/2023 basically. But concerning the registration entity may be considerable, it is allowed to finish the change by 30/04/2023, with 4 months for buffering.

 

The revenue service offices in each district have the “Online Transaction Verification” project and run the program developed by Ministry of Finance each year to verify each case. In the past, the verified cases were usually reported by publics, but with the development of technology, the cases are picked and verified through programs gradually. It is estimated that the number of verified cases are about 1,000 from the revenue service offices in the northern districts.

 

Regarding to the basis of picking cases, Taxation Bureau is unwilling to disclose, but for highly rated sellers without tax ID registration and with unreasonable conditions, they may be picked up and targeted as the verified subjects.

 

E-commerce platforms are also required to restore and provide the members with transaction records pursuant to the new policy. Currently, Taxation Bureau will request the transaction records from each E-commerce platforms, but each platform reserves the rights offer individual information of members based on the ratio principle instead of whole transaction information. It is still not clear whether the revenue service offices will request whole information of members and yearly transaction records forcibly in the future.

 

Another major measure will be issued related with online sales is “High-frequent Transaction Account”. By the end of March on 2023, the financial institutions will request the high-frequent transaction accounts in 2022 shall be submitted to revenue service office in each district. The high-frequent transaction accounts are suspicious of being used as receiving sales income. The definition of high-frequent transaction accounts is the individual account meet the threshold of amount and frequency. The amount reaches TWD 2,400,000 or above by saving, transfer and remittance within the last year and the frequency is the number of transaction reaches TWD 2,000,000 or above by saving, transfer and remittance within any 4 months at the last year.

 

The abovementioned policy is aimed at the same individual and the same financial account. If the accounts are open at A or B bank respectively, the accounts are counted as two individual accounts without combination to calculate.

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