Alien

Last week I filed my taxes at the Alien Services Counter. Though I'm an alien here, this past year I qualify for the lower resident rate of tax according to the number of days I've been in the country. Things seemed to just squeak by on that one; my Hong Kong trip had the potential to mess up my days-in-Taiwan number.

The good thing is that I get a refund, however global warming or weapons of mass destruction may have eliminated large portions of Earth as we know it by the 2-3 years time it takes to receive the refund. I have this conspiracy theory brewing that hypothesizes (out of unfounded thin air) that the tax officials behind the refund are just hoping that individuals will forget about their refund after those several years.

Locals receive their refunds within approximately a year and a half, which is still quite a while.