Does Taiwan tax my father's overseas assets when he dies?

The test is where he lives, not where the money is

Taiwan's estate tax follows the person, not the asset. Under Article 1 of the Estate and Gift Tax Act, where a national of the Republic of China who habitually resides within the territory dies leaving property, estate tax is levied on the whole of the estate both within and outside the territory; a national who does not habitually reside there, and a non-national, are taxed only on property situated in Taiwan. Article 4 supplies the test in two limbs: having had a domicile in the ROC within the two years before death, or, without a domicile, having stayed in the ROC for a total of more than 365 days within those two years. Neither limb asks where the bank is.

The National Taxation Bureau of Taipei publishes the arithmetic in its own words. In its notice of 16 December 2025 a decedent who had a domicile in Taiwan within the two years before death left NT$10 million of Taiwanese property and US property worth NT$80 million; the taxpayer must file on a gross estate of NT$90 million within six months of the death, with the tax office of the household registration district, citing Article 1(1) and Article 4(3). The corollary that catches families is Article 3-1: a decedent who voluntarily renounces ROC nationality within the two years before death is taxed as if he had not.

Then the timetable. The return is due within six months of death under Article 23. Tax is payable within two months of the assessment notice under Article 30, with instalments of up to eighteen months available where the tax is NT$300,000 or more, and payment in kind permitted using taxable property located within Taiwan. Read those two sentences together and the liquidity trap is visible: the tax is computed on worldwide assets, and the in-kind escape valve only accepts Taiwanese ones. This is usually the point at which a family starts discussing renunciation of the inheritance, which gives up the whole statutory share, not the tax on part of it.

The numbers, dated

For an inheritance arising on or after 1 January 2026, the Ministry of Finance announced on 21 May 2026 that the exemption is NT$13.33 million per estate, the spousal deduction NT$5.53 million, the deduction for each lineal descendant NT$560,000, and funeral expenses NT$1.38 million. The figures did not move from the previous year because the trigger in Article 12-1 — a cumulative rise in the consumer price index of 10% or more since the last adjustment — was not met. That is worth knowing in both directions: the thresholds are indexed, but they are indexed in steps, not annually.

The rate bands, adjusted with effect for inheritances arising on or after 1 January 2025, run in three tiers on the net estate: 10% up to NT$56.21 million; NT$5,621,000 plus 15% of the excess between NT$56.21 million and NT$112.42 million; and NT$14,052,500 plus 20% of the excess above NT$112.42 million. Article 11 allows estate tax actually paid abroad on foreign property to be credited, on production of the foreign tax authority's receipt, capped at the increase in Taiwanese tax caused by adding that foreign property. The uncomfortable arithmetic for a Singapore-holding family is that Singapore has charged no estate duty on deaths since 15 February 2008 — so there is nothing to credit, and the Taiwanese rate lands on the Singapore assets in full.

What a Singapore structure changes — and what it does not

Singapore's own position is straightforward: no estate duty on deaths on or after 15 February 2008, no inheritance or gift tax, a perpetuity period of up to 100 years under the Trustees Act 1967, section 90 addressing the validity of certain trusts against foreign forced-heirship claims, and no public register of trusts. For a Taiwanese family the value of that is administrative and dynastic — a trustee who outlives the founder, a distribution rule that does not need a Taiwanese court, and privacy. None of it is a Taiwanese tax result, and a page that implies otherwise is selling.

Taiwan's own statute is explicit about trusts. Under Article 5-1, where a trust is created and the beneficiary is a person other than the settlor, the settlor is treated as making a gift, and gift tax applies; the same follows a change of beneficiary or an addition of property. Article 3-2 brings a testamentary trust into the estate at the testator's death, and taxes the unreceived benefit in a beneficiary's own estate if he dies during the term. Article 15 adds back to the gross estate property given away within the two years before death to a spouse and to statutory heirs. A lifetime settlement therefore changes the analysis only if it is real, priced at the time in gift tax, timed years rather than months ahead, and reported. Deathbed structuring is a two-year rule away from failing.

The case file on Wang Yung-ching is the public record of what happens when the structures exist but the decision does not. He died in October 2008 with no will found; Taiwan assessed estate tax on the worldwide holdings of its most famous domiciliary while his children litigated across three jurisdictions from 2009. Offshore trusts held billions and decided nothing, because holding and deciding are different jobs.

Compulsory portions, and the change that lands in 2027

A will in Taiwan cannot simply write an heir out. Article 1223 of the Civil Code reserves a compulsory portion — 特留分 — expressed as a fraction of each heir's statutory share: one half for lineal descendants, one half for parents, one half for the spouse, one third for siblings and one third for grandparents. That floor is what a will has to clear, and it is the reason Taiwanese succession disputes so often turn on valuation rather than on intention.

The floor is moving. On 28 July 2026 the Legislative Yuan passed at third reading the deletion of the siblings' compulsory portion, amending Article 1223 and Article 12 of the Enforcement Act of the Part of Succession; the Ministry of Justice's stated reason is that sibling ties in modern family life are no longer what the provision assumed. The amendment was promulgated on 17 August 2026 and comes into force six months after publication, and the amended Article 1223 lists only the spouse, lineal descendants and parents at one half and grandparents at one third. Siblings keep their statutory share; what they lose is the protected floor. For a family drafting now, the wall a will must clear is about to move, and the version in force at the date of death is the one that counts.