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Comment by tiredyam | Hacker News Reader

Better the demon you know than the demon you don’t. China has frequently implied jurisdiction of any Chinese national inside or outside its borders. Giving them more international data is a scary thought for me

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As an Australian living in China one of the things that annoys me is that I have to provide all of my Australian bank accounts and investment accounts with my Chinese tax file number. I also have to tell my Chinese banks my Chinese tax file number. This only started 2/3 years ago.

This isn't for the Chinese government or the Australian government. This is for the American government because of the FACTA law.

The US government wants to have jurisdiction of everyone ... just in case you might be an American not paying taxes.

that’s a fair grievance. At least in the current world you can raise those concerns publicly without being censored. You can raise awareness and organize individuals to enact change. I fear that given chinas love for internet censorship that would not be the case if your government gets too cozy with Chinese telecom.

Starting this year it will be for China. Not sure if you heard, but now all foreigners who live in China more than 6 months a year will have to pay tax on their global income.

I'm not sure this is correct. According to [1], foreigners have to pay tax on foreign income if you have live in China for 183 or more days in 6 consecutive years. And you can reset it by leaving the country for 31 or more days. However, foreigners do have to pay tax on foreign income of Chinese entities if they stay longer than 183 days.

So don't invest large amounts in dividend-paying Chinese stocks if you plan on living in China long-term, I guess.

[1] https://www.hrone.com/china-individual-income-tax-2019-impac...

Thanks for this, you might be right. I will have to look into it more. If it's true then this is not so bad.

Edit: Can you find a better source? All of the sources I find say that "it is not clear" if the 5-year rule and 30-day leave reset still applies. Therefore, one should plan for the situation that it does not apply anymore.

[1] http://www.mondaq.com/china/x/777948/tax+authorities/Changes...

Strange to hear that, given that China is the pretty much the only country whose financial companies pay the FATCA tax (yes, ICBC and co are some biggest FATCA tax payers in US)

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