Lending, Tax, Property, and Retirement Practice

Terminology-boundary statement: In this appendix, “CLEC” always refers to Teacher James’s “CLEC investing and personal-finance channel”; “the 00662 community” is a LINE community built spontaneously by students and has no direct connection to Teacher James himself. This appendix collects practical supplements on “lending, tax, property, and retirement” that the main text does not expand on but that are highly relevant to CLEC’s borrowing and allocation logic: most come from the second-hand field contributions of 00662 community members (Kris, Chris, Huang Ban-shen, Kevin, etc.); the reverse-mortgage section is public-information organizing; and the final section is later-period CLEC practitioner Alang’s supplement on asset reactivation and inheritance. None of the above is Teacher James’s personal official opinion; they are for advanced readers only, and beginners should first master the main system. Kris, Chris, Huang Ban-shen, Kevin, and Brother Cheng are community nicknames and are different individuals; Alang is a later-period public CLEC sharer; none are real names or professional qualifications. The material is community and public discussion, not professional investment, tax, or legal advice. All content is current as of 2025-Q4; for specific product, bank, and tax rules, rely on the latest official announcements and consult a qualified accountant, tax adviser, or financial adviser before acting.

One, Kris’s 5P / 5C Logic of Bank Loan Approval

Personal loans and pledging are the lifeblood of CLEC’s cash-flow tactics, but most people get stuck at the hurdle of “not passing loan approval.” Only by understanding the bank’s review framework can you organize yourself into “a low-risk applicant in the bank’s eyes” beforehand.

The Three Absolute Barriers Before Entering Manual Review

As long as any one of the following conditions is triggered, the case will be directly declined at the system level and will not enter manual review at all:

• Barrier one, “credit score below 600”: the system deletes it outright, with no room for discussion. Before submitting, first check your Joint Credit Information Center score, and if it is below the threshold, build up the score before applying.
• Barrier two, “less than three months in the current job”: the bank cannot confirm the continuity of your repayment source. Submitting right after changing jobs yields an extremely low approval rate; the timing sequence of switching jobs and submitting must be planned first.
• Barrier three, “no formal income or proof of financial capacity”: verbal promises or self-made statements are all invalid. Salary must go through a bank salary transfer and leave a withholding statement to count.

The Dual-Axis Review Framework — 5P Looks at the Deal, 5C Looks at the Person

Only after passing the three barriers do you enter the “dual-axis matrix” of manual credit assessment. The bank scores simultaneously across two dimensions, and the intersection of the two axes (the Core Intersection) is the sweet spot where you can truly pass and obtain good conditions:

Field meaning: what the bank is really asking is only two things — “Are you stable?” and “Can you repay?” Making the purpose of funds clear (investing in a quality index rather than gambling) and making the repayment source solid (a stable salary transfer) raises both axes at once.

The Income-Recognition Hierarchy — What Counts as an “Effective Repayment Source”

The same income figure carries wildly different “recognition ratios” in the bank’s eyes:

The Ultimate Rule — Boring Stability Beats Exciting High Pay

Many people think they must prove to the bank that “I earn a lot,” which is entirely the wrong direction. Exciting high pay, in the bank’s eyes, equals “potential default volatility”; what the bank really wants to see is that “you will not get into trouble.”

• Wrong focus: high pay but unstable (High Risk) — drawing the income curve high and jagged.
• Right focus: boring stability (Low Risk) — stability beats absolute income, and credit discipline beats occupational prestige.

In the bank’s eyes, a boring but steadily rising income line always beats an exciting but wildly oscillating high-pay line. This also echoes CLEC’s core stance: the repayment source for borrowing must be built on “stable work salary,” not on volatile dividends or selling stock.

Two, Chris’s Field Vernacular for Credit Negotiation (The Nine-Line Outrageous Method) (Supplementing CH15)

Having the knowledge of the bank list and recognition rules (see CH15) is only the entry ticket to negotiation. Whether you can get a rate “starting with 2%” and long-term conditions still hinges on your income, occupational stability, credit history, proof of assets, debt ratio, and the interest-rate environment at the time; negotiation scripts can only help you fight for conditions that are “deserved but withheld,” not break through your own profile and the bank’s credit policy. Provided your profile is up to standard, the rest is about using language the other side understands — making the officer “want to keep you” rather than “want to close the case quickly.” Chris of the 00662 community once compiled a widely circulated set of nine “outrageous method” lines that, when the bank’s offer is clearly below market level, you can recite directly and without emotion:

1. “Do you even know what you are talking about? Go back and think it over, and let’s talk next time.”
2. “This is outrageous, absolutely outrageous.”
3. “I have provided so much financial documentation, and you still have not given me this kind of limit and rate. Forget it, I will find another bank.”
4. “I have to go abroad on business next week, so if you want the deal move fast, and if not, let’s just talk the week after next.”
5. “Does your bank have any other officers? I do not find this very professional.”
6. “With a rate this high and a limit this low, I have no interest in negotiating at all. Forget it, this is outrageous.”
7. “3-point-something percent is an insult. I will give you more in handling fees to bring it down to 2-point-something percent.”
8. Stay silent for five seconds, do not pick up the conversation.
9. “Sigh…” (a sigh is enough).

The shared design logic of these nine lines has three layers:

• The first layer is “no rush” — every line implies the attitude that “if you do not give me this condition, I do not lack this money and I do not lack the time,” which is precisely the concrete grounding of CH15’s point about “not letting the salesperson feel you are in a hurry to borrow.”
• The second layer is “having a comparison set” — several lines emphasize “find another bank,” “another officer,” “another plan,” signaling to the officer that you have already surveyed the market and are not just casually shopping around.
• The third layer is “leaving a gap for the other side to proactively improve the offer” — especially the silence in line eight, which is the most lethal tool at the negotiation table; you throw the blank at the other side, and to fill the blank, they will automatically raise their bid.

Note that the premise of this set of lines is that “your profile genuinely deserves this rate.” If your annual income, credit, and occupational conditions still fall short of the bank’s published minimum threshold, forcing these lines will only make the officer abandon the case outright. The lines are used to fight for conditions that are “deserved but withheld by the other side,” not to “forcibly seize conditions beyond your profile.” Before executing, first run the calculator mentioned in CH15’s “online tools and credit inquiry” section to confirm the range you should reasonably obtain, and then go to the negotiation table.

Three, Huang Ban-shen’s Life-Cycle Borrowing Armored Car

The concept of “Buy, Borrow, Die” is already established in the main line of the book, but “how to actually borrow, how much you can borrow, and how to keep the principal compounding in the market forever” belongs to the operational layer. Huang Ban-shen, using a Yuanta 10-year personal loan as an example, breaks this money flow down into one formula and two execution steps.

The Armored-Car Formula — Recognizing Assets as a Credit Line

Some banks (such as Yuanta), for specific clients under specific conditions during specific periods, will “recognize” the market value of stocks held within a brokerage account as a borrowable credit line (this is a case-by-case recognition model, not a universal formula for all banks, and not a guaranteed approved limit), and the formula can be remembered as:

[stock market value] ÷ 60 × 22 = borrowable amount

Breaking down the logic: first divide the market value by 60 to convert it into “deemed monthly income” in the bank’s eyes; then multiply by the DBR 22× ceiling common in personal loans. Take a stock market value of NT$12 million as an example — dividing by 60 gives a deemed monthly income of NT$200,000, and multiplying by 22 approves about NT$4.4 million (example rate about 3.15%, 10-year term). If you want to fill up the NT$10 million ceiling on assets alone, the market value needs to reach about NT$27.27 million. Note that the DBR 22× is a risk-control-ceiling concept for “total unsecured debt balance relative to monthly income,” and the actual limit still depends on the bank’s credit assessment, income stability, occupation, Joint Credit report, and existing debt; it is not guaranteed just by plugging into the formula.

1. Barbell Allocation (Seek Survival First, Then Seek Offense)

The borrowed funds are not thrown all-in at once, but split into a two-ended “barbell” structure:

• The survival end (about half): kept as highly liquid cash, able to cover more than 3 years of repayment, ensuring you are not forcibly liquidated in any crash and can sleep at night.
• The offensive end (about half): invested in core market-cap-type assets, using smaller principal to obtain near-full-position market exposure.

Huang Ban-shen’s original example used 0050 or a 2× ETF on the offensive end; this book’s core instruments are 00662 / 00670L, and going all-in with all funds is strictly forbidden — the barbell structure holds up precisely because that “survival-end cash defensive line” is always present.

2. Credit-Cycle Management via Loan Rollover and Increase

Every time a one-year lock-up period ends, do one “loan rollover and increase,” re-borrowing the principal repaid over that year to keep the leverage from slipping:

• Outflow: the total paid over the first 12 to 13 months is about NT$170,000 (of which about NT$140,000 is principal and NT$30,000 is interest).
• Inflow: at the end of the lock-up, roll over and increase the loan to re-borrow, taking the NT$140,000 of already-paid principal back into hand.
• Net cost: the true cost is only about NT$30,000 per year in pure interest.

Core insight: pushing the principal back into the market again and again through “loan rollover and increase” can keep the principal from leaving as much as possible, so it keeps compounding. But this is only a credit-management technique that works when assets and credit conditions are stable, not a money machine guaranteed to run in perpetuity — every rollover / increase must undergo the bank’s review again, and if income, credit, rates, or bank policy change, the limit may shrink or the loan may not be renewed.

Calibration premise (consistent with CLEC’s stance): the repayment source must be a stable work salary, not dividends or selling stock; the maintenance ratio and cash defensive line must keep the safety belt on at all times; this is an advanced operation for after both assets and cash flow are solid, and for those with unstable cash flow, forcing it will only push themselves onto the liquidation block earlier.

Four, Huang Ban-shen’s Taiwan Geographic Arbitrage — Why Taiwan Is the Strongest FIRE Base

The same asset size has vastly different “real purchasing power” and “after-tax retention rate” in different countries. The “geographic arbitrage” perspective compiled by Huang Ban-shen points out the structural advantages of Taiwanese investors that are underestimated.

The Tax-Structure Advantage of the Middle Class

For long-term-investing Taiwan tax residents, the tax structure is indeed relatively favorable — but different tools must not be lumped together (00662 is a Taiwan-listed ETF; QQQ / SGOV / BOXX are overseas ETFs; sub-brokerage and overseas brokers additionally involve overseas income and inheritance). A rough comparison:

Two things must be kept clear: first, the low tax on Taiwan stocks / Taiwan ETFs differs from the overseas-income scenario of directly holding US-stock ETFs, sub-brokerage, or overseas brokers; second, the tax-base logic for Taiwan tax residents and for US citizens / green-card holders / US tax residents is completely different (the latter file on worldwide income, and also face FBAR / FATCA, RMD, and estate tax). NT$7.5 million is not simply a “tax exemption” but a threshold for determining the basic income amount under the alternative minimum tax, and still depends on the full-year income mix and deductions. On the whole, Taiwan is friendly to middle-class long-term investors, but the premise of “being skimmed off less” is using the right tool and filing the right tax.

The Invisible Asset — The Medical Safety Net

Taiwan’s National Health Insurance is a hard-to-quantify “invisible asset.” In countries without universal health insurance, a single serious illness can directly break through retirement savings and even lead to “medical bankruptcy”; Taiwan’s health insurance system greatly reduces the impact of major medical expenses on family finances, equivalent to installing a layer of basic protection over the asset allocation; but it cannot fully replace commercial insurance, long-term-care preparation, and an emergency reserve. One of the biggest worries of FIRE (early retirement) is medical expenses spiraling out of control, and on this point Taiwan is relatively at an advantage.

The Wealth Add-On — Interest-Rate Arbitrage

Taiwan’s mortgage and personal-loan rates have long been on the low side (mortgages commonly in the 2% to 3% range). When the cost of borrowing is far below the long-term annualized return of 00662 / QQQ, borrowing low-rate NT dollars and investing them into the world’s strongest productive assets is itself a structural form of “interest-rate arbitrage.” This is also the underlying bonus of “earn NT dollars, invest in the whole world” — for Taiwanese investors, the most simplified path is to gain NASDAQ-100 exposure through the Taiwan-listed 00662; if you instead use sub-brokerage or an overseas broker to hold QQQ, you must additionally handle overseas income, NRA US estate tax, broker risk, inheritance documents, and exchange rates, and it should not be regarded as an equal substitute for the domestic core.

Five, The Exemption and Basis Reset of Land Value Increment Tax on Inheritance (Supplementing CH26)

CH26 pointed out the “cost trap of the consolidated housing and land tax” (when selling after inheritance, the acquisition cost is deemed to be the low assessed present value, leading to high tax). But real-estate inheritance actually has an opposite side on the “land value increment tax” line, which Kris’s high-net-worth inheritance material organizes into an iron rule.

• Implicit liability: the longer real estate is held, the higher the accumulated potential land value increment tax liability. If sold or gifted during one’s lifetime, an extremely heavy land value increment tax must be paid at progressive rates.
• Inheritance transfer exemption + basis reset (Tax Reset): under the Land Tax Act, land transferred through inheritance is exempt from land value increment tax at the moment of inheritance (§28); when the heir later sells, the “present value of the previous transfer” for the land value increment tax is determined by the assessed present value at the start of inheritance (§31), which amounts to resetting the land-increment-tax basis accumulated over the past several decades. This does not mean all real-estate tax burdens are reset to zero; it must still be viewed together with the consolidated housing and land tax and the estate tax.
• Two taxes, two stages: this does not overturn the conclusion that “Taiwan real-estate inheritance tends to be tax-unfavorable” — the land value increment tax (which acts “at the moment of inheritance,” exempt on inheritance and with a basis reset, an advantage) and the consolidated housing and land tax (which acts “on sale after inheritance,” with a low cost basis, a trap) are two different taxes. Inherited real estate is favorable for land value increment tax but unfavorable for consolidated housing and land tax, and the whole still requires a case-by-case combined calculation. CLEC’s core stance is unchanged: the core of wealth should be placed in productive index assets, not tied down in low-liquidity real estate.
• Operational reference (not an iron rule): if the family holds real estate held for many years with a very high potential land-value-increment-tax burden, before selling or gifting during one’s lifetime you should first calculate the land value increment tax, consolidated housing and land tax, gift tax, estate tax, and family cash flow, and should not hastily transfer just because you “want to distribute early”; whether to keep it until inheritance to make use of the exemption and basis reset should be evaluated jointly by a land administration agent, an accountant, and the family.

The above is a compilation of general public tax rules; the actual calculation and applicable circumstances of land value increment tax and consolidated housing and land tax vary with individual cases and policy, so please refer to the latest tax law and the announcements of the National Taxation Bureau / land administration authorities, and consult a qualified land administration agent or accountant.

Six, Huang Ban-shen’s Selling the House for Cash vs. Mortgage Reactivation

People who already own real estate face a crossroads: “a one-time sale of the house for cash” or “periodic mortgage reactivation (keeping the house and taking out additional loans to obtain funds for the index)”? This is precisely the extension of the “Buy, Borrow, Die” logic onto an owner-occupied home.

Huang Ban-shen uses about 23 years of Taiwan historical data (2003 to 2026) for comparison (the following is a compilation of Huang Ban-shen’s model, with differences in definition — whether real estate includes rent, whether Taiwan stocks include reinvested dividends, and whether taxes, fees, and holding costs are deducted all significantly affect the results):

• Taiwan’s six special municipalities real estate: cumulative total return about 300%, annualized appreciation (CAGR) about 6.0%.
• The Taiwan broad market (such as the index tracked by 0050): cumulative total return about 850%, annualized return (CAGR) about 10.5%.

Under the assumptions of about 20% leverage borrowing and a mortgage rate of about 3%, the model’s break-even point lands near “annualized home-price appreciation of about 3.5%” (this is a simplified model, not counting home holding costs and transaction taxes and fees) — only when the long-term home-price gain is above this line is “mortgage reactivation” more worthwhile than “selling the house” under this assumption. Although Taiwan real estate’s long-term 6.0% is higher than the 3.5% threshold, it clearly lags the stock broad market’s 10.5%; if the funds are directed into 00662 / QQQ, the paper margin of victory would be larger, but in practice a case-by-case calculation is still required.

It must be recognized: mortgage reactivation is not necessarily superior to selling the house, but is an advanced option of “keeping low-rate collateral and activating home equity.” If the mortgage rate is low, the monthly payment is bearable, the family still needs to live in the home, and the funds can be invested in highly productive assets, keeping the home and taking out an additional loan may be better than selling outright; but if cash flow is unstable, home holding costs are high (land value tax, repairs, management fees), the location or liquidity is poor, or the assets are already overly concentrated in real estate, selling the house to obtain liquidity may instead be the right move. Whether to reactivate should be worked out case by case in combination with interest rates, returns, holding costs, and owner-occupancy and inheritance needs, and is not suitable to force for those with unstable cash flow.

Seven, The Bank Practice of Reverse Mortgages (Supplementing CH15)

A reverse mortgage is a retirement tool in which the bank disburses funds monthly to the homeowner, who continues to live in their own home, and after death the bank disposes of the property to settle the debt. It activates the dead asset of an “owner-occupied home” into a monthly cash flow.

• Supply side: mostly underwritten by public-share banks and some private banks, as a policy-oriented product; each bank’s age threshold, building-age restriction, valuation ratio, interest rate, and disbursement term differ, and must be compared bank by bank against the latest announcements.
• CLEC stance: a reverse mortgage is an option to “activate a dead asset when there is no other choice,” with less flexibility than a wealth-management mortgage or a revolving mortgage (which can be borrowed and repaid at will, with interest-only payments). For those who still have work cash flow or are willing to pledge, the flexibility of a wealth-management / revolving mortgage is higher; a reverse mortgage is more suitable for elders who are “already retired, unwilling to pledge, and whose property is their main asset.” The priority order and clause details of the related mortgage tools are detailed in the chapter on letting the bank support you for life.
• Common premise: any home-activation tool must first confirm that the monthly cash flow can bear the borrowing cost, and retain a sufficient cash defensive line, and must never push the family to the brink of running out of food just to cash out.

Eight, Kevin’s Retirement Start-Up-Period Drawdown Strategy (Supplementing CH17)

People in the community often ask: in the first year of retirement, while still feeling out asset allocation and psychological tolerance, must you immediately activate the 2% pledge drawdown? Kevin (a common responder in the community) gives the answer “not necessarily” — if you have not yet found a suitable allocation ratio, you can hold off on drawing down, or start drawing at 1%, and slowly adjust up to 2% over one or two years. Brother Cheng further adds: “I still suggest drawing down only after retirement; do not go crazy wanting to make money.” These two views together point to the same discipline — the priority goal of the retirement start-up period is not to “immediately run the cash flow to full,” but to “first get familiar with the operating rhythm of the three tracks of allocation / pledging / maintenance ratio,” and only after the system has been running stably for a while do you enter the standard 2% drawdown band. For retirees with insufficient psychological makeup, or with ample cash backup (for example, a monthly labor-pension annuity, or a spouse still employed), this “buffered start-up period” is instead the safety cushion most worth the investment.

Nine, Alang’s Asset-Reactivation and Inheritance Supplement

(This section organizes the “beyond-allocation” material from Alang’s public sharing in “the Leveraged-2x Life” — asset reactivation, using stocks in place of insurance, tax inheritance, and child-rearing philosophy; it was originally in Appendix 6 (Alang’s Leveraged-2x Life Field Strategies) and is moved here because it is not allocation strategy. The figures are examples specific to Alang’s particular asset scale; rely on the latest official announcements for tax law and product rules, and note that these are high-risk personal practices demanding extreme psychological fortitude.)

Alang excels at conveying allocation ideas through everyday analogies — he has likened buying the prototype to fishing with a single hook, and buying the 2x to a veteran angler of bottom-dwelling fish using two hooks at once, covering different depths and doubling the hook-up rate; with only a single hook (pure prototype) you cannot earn that excess return. This “double-hook fishing” analogy makes the two-layer exposure of “prototype as base, 2x as offense” extremely intuitive.

Using Stocks in Place of Insurance, and Selling the Investment Property

When financial assets accumulate to a very high level, Alang holds that the assets themselves are the strongest insurance. He has shared that he has surrendered all commercial insurance and put the surrender value into the market to compound.

This is an extreme way of moving “the sense of security” from the policy to the assets; the risk is losing the leverage protection of insurance, and it suits only those with already very thick assets who can self-bear medical and accident costs — ordinary families must not rashly follow.

For people holding multiple properties, he also advocates, once the owner-occupancy need is met, converting the investment property into cash and into the 2x — especially selling after five years of holding, when the property-transaction income tax steps down.

Next year I have two investment properties reaching five years, the property tax drops to 20%, so of course I can sell and convert. The 2x earns more, and it is more convenient to transfer assets; while I can, I will turn it into cash. (Alang’s Leveraged-2x Life, EP145)

His reasoning is that property has poor liquidity, is troublesome to transfer, and depreciates; moving the funds into the 2x achieves higher asset-appreciation efficiency.

Tax-Free Gifting and “Raising Them Poor” With Funds

Focusing on Taiwan’s local tax environment, Alang long ago used the annual tax-free gift allowance to buy the 2x directly into his children’s accounts, spreading future estate-tax pressure early.

Every year gift the child NT$2.44 million to buy the 2x directly… now you put it in the child’s account, the 2x in the child’s account, and later the child has a lot of money, and it is very convenient for the child to pay whatever tax. (Alang’s Leveraged-2x Life, EP140)

His thinking is to use the annual tax-free gift allowance to transfer assets to his children in batches early, saving considerable estate tax over the years. But more important than tax avoidance is his “raise them poor” philosophy — even if the 2x in the child’s account has grown to a staggering figure, he insists the child must never easily use or even know about this money, and must strive from zero.

When I was little I was so poor I was chased for debts; compared with now, the kids have whatever they want — the gap is really big. I think striving from zero is super thrilling, and only the process of overcoming adversity can refine true character, so do not just stuff them with too much money and instead rob the child of the chance to strive on their own and experience the sense of achievement. (Alang’s Leveraged-2x Life, podcast)

Note: The sections of this appendix are organized from the spontaneous practices and public information of 00662 community members (Kris, Huang Ban-shen, Chris, Kevin, etc., who are different individuals), current as of mid-2026; community versions may update at any time. For the latest, rely on the notes, admin explanations, or the original authors’ latest posts in the corresponding communities (the 00662 main community, the advanced finance discussion group, the mind chat room, and the free chat group).

Core reminder: The lending, tax, property, and retirement tactics in this appendix are all “advanced variants,” built on the premise that the main line (433 allocation, annual rebalancing, the cash defense line, Buy-Borrow-Die) is already solid. Get the main system right first, then talk about these non-mainstream extensions; reverse the order and you only add risk.