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Regulations on Living Allowance For Mid or Low-income Senior Citizens

Promulgated by Order Tai(87)-Nei-She-Tzu No.8777541 on June 3, 1998

Amended and promulgated by Order Tai(88)-Nei-She-Tzu No.8891099 on Oct. 20, 1999

Amended and promulgated by Order Tai(89)-Nei-Chung-She-Tzu No. 8988375 on Oct. 27, 2000

Amended and promulgated by Order Tai-Nei-Chung-She-Tzu No. 0910011370-3 on Feb.5, 2002

Article 3 and Article 15 amended by Order Nei-Shou-Chung-She-Tzu No. 0930709327-3 on May 4, 2004

Amended and promulgated by Order Nei-Shou-Chung-She-Tzu No. 0960714062 on July 11, 2007

Article 12 and Article 14 amended by Order Nei-Shou-Chung-She-Tzu No. 0970713988 on September 15, 2008

Article 1:	These regulations are stipulated in accordance with Paragraph 3, Article 12, of the Senior Citizen Welfare Act.
Article 2:	A Senior Citizen qualified according to the following criteria is entitled to apply for Living Allowance (hereinafter referred to as“ the allowance”): 1. is more than 65 years old and physically lives in the municipality or county(city) of household registration; additionally, he or she must have lived in Taiwan for more than 183 days for the previous year; 2. will be formally excluded from participation based on eligibility for governmental support for facility.. 3. based on the combined average income of all resident family members, he/she has a total income of less than 2.5 times the lowest living index for that year published by the responsible agency of that municipality or county(city), but be less than 1.5 times of the average monthly living cost in Taiwan; 4. all resident family members combined possess financial assets, including bank deposits and interest, plus securities at current market value, not to exceed a certain amount;. 5. land or houses owned by resident family members the whole family do not exceed reasonable living space required; 6. he/she not been sentenced to sever time in a correctional facility, or are being held pending charges for serious violations of the law;
	Subject to an exception, the municipal or county (city) competent authority should report it to the central government authority for determining the allowance standard prescribed in item 3.
Article 3:	The amounts stipulated in the first paragraph, item 4, of the previous article are calculated by accountable municipal or county (city) authorities using the following guidelines:
	1. the total amount of bank deposits and interest, plus securities deposit principal, investments and face value of securities for resident family members do not exceed NT$2,500,000 dollars for any one member; 2. an additional amount of NT$250,000 will be added for an additional member.
Article 4:	The evaluation standards for reasonable living space as stipulated in Article 2, 1^st paragraph, item 5 will be determined by municipality and county (city) governments.
	Land/property evaluations will be based on published current market value assessments. However, the following property, if so determined by accountable municipal or county (city) authorities, will not be included in the calculation:
	1. Aboriginal conservation lands which do not yield any economic benefits; 2. Land reserved for public use and public lands with existing roads or projected for use as future roads.
	The verification of the land of item 1 of the previous paragraph will follow the verification standards in identifying aboriginal conservation lands which do not yield any economic benefits.
Article 5:	When filing a written application to offices of county, town, city or district where the household registration record is being kept, applicant for this allowance should present relevant supporting official documents.
	Information of all applicant’s various incomes and properties will be compiled by offices of county, town, city or district and then sent to the National Tax Administration and the Revenue Service Office respectively asking for related data within the latest year.
	Upon receiving application, offices of county, town, city or district should conduct and finish an investigation and preliminary examination as soon as possible and report the results by accountable municipal or county (city) authorities for verification.
Article 6:	Standards of this allowance as stipulated in Article 2 are: 1. there should be an allowance of NT$7,200 dollars if that amount is less than 1.5 times of the average individual monthly living expense and also less than 1.5 times the average individual monthly living cost in Taiwan. 2. an allowance shall be limited to NT$3,600 dollars if the average individual monthly living expense exceeds 1.5 times but is less than 2.5 times the average individual monthly living expense, and is also less than 1.5 times the average individual monthly living cost in Taiwan. The amount prescribed in preceding item should be adjusted every 4 years by the central government authority, according to the general consumer price indices growth rate comparing with the previous adjusting year promulgated by the central accounting competent authorities Allowances reflected in the previous paragraph will be posted directly to applicant’s accounts by accountable municipal or county (city) authorities.
Article7:	The total family income in these regulations represents the total amount of working income from every member of the family, including income from military retirement pay (lifetime living subsidy), monthly retirement pay for government affairs personnel, government employees & teachers, and personnel employed by state-run enterprises, interests of deposits, revenues from real estate and all other incomes. With regard to the so-called “the whole family”, personnel qualified recipients include:
	1. applicant and his or her spouse; 2. children with maintenance obligation and their spouses; 3. children without working capability raised by the persons of the previous item; 4. grandchildren with an established maintenance obligation if there are no such persons as stipulated in item 2 above; 5. in addition to the four categories listed above, taxpayer who enjoys income tax exemptions from supporting relatives.
Article 8:	Persons having one of the following limitations should not be listed as member of family as stipulated in the previous Article:
	1. No credible documentation that establishes residency for married daughters, married son as an uxorilocal husband, spouses and children of these daughters and sons; 2. No credible documentation that establishes residency for the widowed daughter-in-law or the widowed uxorilocal son-in-law, and children of the daughter-in-law or the uxorilocal son-in-law. 3. Spouses not ROC citizens, including spouses from PRC who are not permitted to work in Taiwan; 4. those serving on active duty or alternatives to military services; 5. students receiving subsidy from the government; 6. those currently serving sentences in prison, being held by authorities pending legal action or being detained according to the laws; 7. those missing for more than 6 months after their disappearance have been reported to and officially searched by the police; Persons of the above paragraph should still be listed as member of family if they qualify according to condition set forth in item 5 of the previous Article.
Article 9:	Incomes for the members of the family capable of working but unemployed at the time of application will be calculated based on the lowest salary for the latest year published by the Labor Committee of the Executive Yuan.
Article 10:	The following rules are for family members whose income information is incomplete or unavailable: 1. Incomes for junior high school teachers, primary school teachers and professional military personnel will be calculated in accordance with the rules of “key points in paying government military personnel, employees and teachers”.2. Incomes of non-available data will be calculated based on the average salary from the “salary reports of various careers for the latest year” published by the Labor Committee of the Executive Yuan. 3. If there is no information listed on the salary reports of various careers for the latest year, income will be calculated based on the average entry-level salary of variety occupations published by the Labor Committee of the Executive Yuan.
Article 11:	Following examination of each potentially eligible applicant, those failing to meet qualifications listed in Article 2 above, or are deceased, each person or his/her heir at law should notify the offices of the county, town, city or district where the applicant’s household is registered within 15 days of the occurrence of the incidents be guided by applicable regulations or laws. Under these circumstances, this allowance will be terminated from the next month of the occurrence of the incidents above.
	When deceased applicants die and their allowances are not posted to their accounts in time, the heir at law, who is listed as a member of the family, may become eligible for assuming this allowance with the presentation of related proving documents of applicant’s death and identification of their being heir at law. If there are two or more heirs at law, they should present a joint power of attorney and a declaration entrusting one of the heirs at law to claim the allowance.
Article 12:	Those who are eligible for this allowance, the senior farmer welfare allowance, the old age security basic pension, basic guaranteed pension for the physical and mental disability, and the physical and mental disability living subsidy in the same time are limited to receive only one of the above allowances or subsidy. Central government authority will hold meetings with municipality or county (city) governments to decide on the qualification as well as the calculation base for persons eligible for applying other government allowances.
Article 13:	Funds for this allowance will be from the budget compiled by municipal or county (city) competent authority.
Article 14:	These regulations will be implemented starting from the announcement date. The amended regulation on September 11, 2008 will be implemented on October 1, 2008. The amended regulation on December 27, 2011 will be implemented on January 1, 2012.