🤯 Even Bank Interest is Taxed! The Absurdity and Short-sightedness of the 2nd-Gen NHI “Supplementary Premium”
While buying breakfast, I heard a neighbor sitting outside loudly cursing the government. I initially thought this was just routine and didn’t pay much attention, only catching snippets about “NHI supplementary premiums.” Later, back home and about to enjoy my meal, I heard a related report on the BCC morning news. Suddenly, it all made sense—my neighbor was right to be angry.
💰 What is the NHI Supplementary Premium?
The supplementary premium is a new “scheme” introduced with “Second-Generation NHI.” In the 96th issue of the National Health Insurance Bi-monthly, author Wei Yun-lin describes it as follows:
…2nd-Gen NHI premium income, in addition to the current “general insurance premium” calculated based on regular salary, includes a “supplementary insurance premium.” People with income other than salary, such as high dividend income and large bank interest, will see their NHI premiums increase. By expanding the premium base and targeting other income that the public generally believes should be included, the aim is to bring premiums closer for those with similar incomes, achieving the fairness of proportional burden…
Simply put, the “NHI supplementary premium” is a second-tier premium added by the NHI Administration targeting “other income” beyond our regular salaries.
Based on this concept, the Department of Health mandated that any single bank interest payment exceeding NT$2,000 requires the payment of the “NHI supplementary premium” (though it’s not limited to bank interest).
The word “Stupid” is spelled like this…
📉 Calculation Methods and Potential Waste
With current interest rates around 1.something percent, earning NT$2,000 in interest requires a bank deposit of approximately NT$150,000.
According to a “maximization” hypothesis by the Bankers Association, if all Taiwanese citizens were to terminate, split, and redeposit their time deposits, the total waste in manpower, resources, profits, and interest would amount to nearly NT$3.2 billion. This is NT$200 million more than the NT$3 billion the government expects to collect (though I find the Association’s argument somewhat exaggerated).
In other words, the result of this administration’s policy is “profit for me, sacrifice for you”—our lovely government rarely seems to produce win-win policies.
Furthermore, I personally find the worst part of this policy to be that the supplementary premium is not levied on “annual income,” but on individual payments of non-salary income!
As a result, even if citizens don’t terminate deposits immediately (which causes interest loss), over the next few years, time deposits will mature sequentially. You can bet everyone will choose smaller, split deposits.
In other words, this so-called supplementary premium will see diminishing returns year by year. At that point, an NHI system reliant on supplementary premiums will only see its “black hole” grow larger, feeding even more medical industry “cockroaches.”
From these points, the government’s vision is unimaginably short-sighted.
📌 Two Conclusions and a Satire
Finally, regarding this NHI supplementary premium incident, I’ve summarized two conclusions:
- Since an “M-shaped society” has bad optics, the government intends to build a new “J-shaped society” (a society where everyone except the rich is flat on the ground);
- I hope the government uses this supplementary premium money to buy themselves a new brain.
As a side note, this new system, supposedly based on the principle of fairness and “making the rich pay a bit more,” contains a clause: as long as you earn over 10 million, you enjoy a cap at 10 million. I truly fail to see the “fairness” in that.