Yup same here, for every bank. Don’t really care as I keep all my money in other countries where I don’t even need to pay any tax. 
They can keep the 20% of 200NT$/year interest I earn here.
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Apparently the withholding rate on interest income should be 15% for residents, and we’re being charged the non-resident rate of 20%? Is there anyone Taiwanese here who can check theirs and confirm?
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If you have the chance, maybe you can also forward the statement I posted to one of your contacts to show them what the result is when declaring that one is a resident of Taiwan and no other countries…
I confirm it’s the non resident rate.
What it is is that the banks simply cannot be bothered doing their due diligence in ensuring that you are a tax resident so it’s easier just to do the full 20% for “foreigners”
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They will simply say “America told us to do this.”
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What’s especially annoying is that they seem to be just assuming we’re here less than 183 days and non-resident, despite us literally giving them our alien resident certificate.
I don’t recall ever even being asked how many days I’d been in Taiwan - this would need to be checked for each year, and it seems like banks are just filling out <183 days themselves without asking.
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I’ve sent an email to the Taipei tax bureau asking them for clarification on whether this is an issue and how to resolve that. I am curious on what they will reply 
IIRC from previous years, the over-withheld tax on interest (tiny though it is - I also don’t really keep any money here) should be corrected in the tax return each year.
I’m guessing the tax bureau will say “not our department”.
I’ve just tried calling CTBC to get them to fix my tax statement. The first phase (calling customer service, choosing the English service option, and getting directed to someone who doesn’t speak English) is now complete, so I’m waiting for their callback.
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SOP
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I just noticed the following note on Cathay’s website:
Dear customer：
In accordance with Article 94-1 of the Income Tax Act, beginning from January 8 2014, the Bank may be exempt from issuing the withholding certificate to the taxpayer who meets the requirements of the Ministry of Finance (currently an individual residing in the territory of the Republic of China). For relevant regulations, please refer to the contents of the “Withholding Certificate Exemption Operation Area” on the website of the Taxation Administration, MOF.
Could this mean that Cathay and E.SUN actually have my categorized as a Taiwan resident because they have never sent out a statement like that to me…?
When trying to download it from their website (“Interest Income and Structured Product Transaction Income” for Cathay), they both simply state “No data for this year”. But then again, they’re still withholding 20% of tax on interest payments…
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It just bugs me every time. I can only conclude that they include the “press x for English service” message so that Taiwanese customers hear it and think “wow, my bank is so international!” It does literally nothing, every single time!
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tbh, every time I read the names of the banks in Chinese… a lot have the 國際 title in it… INTERNATIONAL WHAT??? Christ…
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It’s not only banks. I called the Australian embassy once and pressed 1 for English… “Wei”
Sorry, not embassy. The Australian Office which acts in the interest of Australia in the absence of diplomatic relations… aka… embassy.
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Tried to call the Italian Consulate in HK, they don’t even have the Italian option… Only canto and English…
That’s next level ridiculous lol
so that’s why I can’t complain too much about TW, I’m used to much worse. here it’s still relatively a breeze tbh
Okay, so I just got called back by a friendly lady at CTBC with excellent English.
In regard to the 183 days issue (the lesser of the two problems), she said that their system automatically assumes foreigners have been here less than 183 days unless they demonstrate otherwise, e.g., by going into the branch with their passport (or presumably the records from immigration).
I said that for people here with an ARC because they’re working or married or whatever this is likely going to be a wrong assumption like >90% of the time and their system shouldn’t just assume that all foreigners are here on holiday or something after they’ve shown an ARC. I also asked her whether their system just assumes that Taiwanese nationals who have citizenship elsewhere are here for >183 days each year. She said “probably”, laughed at both of those things, told me she’d pass on the feedback, and also noted that we’d get back the over-withheld tax with our tax return.
For the more important issue of someone in the bank apparently overruling my tax residency self-declaration, she seemed to understand what I was saying to her about CRS rules and resident foreigners not necessarily (or even usually) being tax-resident in their home countries but suggested that the system/bank might also be doing this by default. She said she’d need to look into that and call me back in a few days after she’d checked with the branch and presumably her supervisors, so let’s see.
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I end up with plenty of lines of over-withheld interest every year. Doesn’t bother me too much throughout the year, as the amounts are small, but always a nice surprise when declaring taxes.
The amounts don’t bother me either, it’s just rather irritating that they assume we’re non-resident unless we go and show otherwise, without even an automated e-mail to ask…
The bigger thing though is them deciding our tax residency in contradiction of what we’ve self-declared. Which also means them passing the info to the tax office and the tax office then sharing it under the CRS with places where we’re not tax resident.
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As long as you don’t give them any TINs from other countries, I don’t think anything will happen.