It’s not interest income. It is the bonus 200 for a referral
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Ohh okay, that makes sense.
According to the Tax Bureau in Taipei, this is standard practice. They told me the following when I inquired about that issue:
Regarding your incorrect withholding statement for a bank account, there is no way to tell the bank to correct your incorrect withholding statement.
The bank can not judge whether your are resident or non-resident during the whole year beause they can not access your entry and depart records.
So the real issue lies with the issue of tax residency of foreigners according to tge tax bureau discussed in that thread (which was actually started using the picture of my Richart withholding statement I posted earlier in this thread):
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This is a different thing though, right? Your quoted text relates to resident vs. non-resident (i.e., >183 days or not), not the thing I’m complaining about (banks unilaterally deciding that we’re tax resident in our countries of citizenship).
Some banks apparently just default to the country of citizenship of the account holder as they cannot put Taiwan because of the tax office‘s stupid interpretation of that law…
Putting Taiwan would make sense and solve this issue - but the banks apparently aren’t allowed to do that when it comes to us foreigners (at least not in the first half of the year)…
Like, what’s the point of asking us if we’re exclusively tax resident in Taiwan, asking us to confirm that three more times, and then deciding “oh, well, they’re probably tax resident in their home country anyway”.
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My best guess is that the banks are caught between wanting to follow their interpretation of KYC and any money laundering rules (opening an account without residency anywhere in the world is impossible in most countries) and the tax office‘s rules that we cannot be resident for tax purposes without having already stayed 183+ days in a particular year.
It makes no sense - but I‘d still blame the government more for creating this mess in the first place…
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I wonder if different counties have their own guidelines on tax residency? Taipei and Kaohsiung have their own tax bureau and everywhere else has their own tax offices i thought. Or is there one central tax bureau somewhere that’s issuing guidelines on foreigners.
Well, if u folks follow the thread about the banks tax residency declaration, u can understand the reason I appealed to the control yuan.
It’s not some banks, all banks do this since according to the tax bureau interpretation only who has household registration is domiciled in Taiwan and hence assumed to always be tax resident of Taiwan.
That’s what I’m fighting and what also the control yuan inquired to the various agencies the reason for this apparently unjustified differentiated treatment.
Glad someone else finally noticed, complaining to banks and FSC doesn’t do anything since it must be the tax bureau to change the interpretation of art. 7 of the income tax act according finally to the principle of equality and reasonableness
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This isn’t the whole story though - we have people who report having “ZZ” in that field. So it doesn’t seem to be all.
I have that to, but the field for tax residence in TW still reports "無‘ and the onr for “has been in te for more than 183 days” also reports "否‘’.
Those r the one which matter the most
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I just threw their own terms and conditions in their face until they broke
They called me 3/4 times to come in. I told them I’m not coming in, according to your own terms and conditions I don’t need to. Process the funds ASAP.
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I hadn’t got around to complaining to Taishin/Richart yet, but funnily enough I just received another withholding statement for the NT$300 account opening bonus, and in this case I was listed as “ZZ” (not “GB” like last time).
I’m still listed as non-resident, but no tax was withheld. IIRC, this is in contrast to what @slawa reported for his account opening bonus. 
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I am eagerly awaiting mail from them, letting me know that they are withholding nothing from a signup bonus using a false tax declaration.
Money well spent, jobs created.
You mean you contacted them over this? I thought you received the bonus a few months back and said that they’d withheld a percentage…or am I misremembering?
Yes, back then I was joking about 6000NTD tax refund tax, not the Richart signup bonus.
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You can sign a form at a bank so any foreign funds coming in your personal no longer need to go to the bank to do any paper work.
Are you sure? For any amount? At Richart? How do they know who the funds are from or what type of funds they are? I assume they need to ask questions against white-washing of money?
Mega Bank hasn’t ever required me to go into the branch. Previously they’d call me every time and I generally wouldn’t answer, but today they didn’t even bother calling and the money went straight into my multicurrency account. This isn’t something I’ve asked for or signed anything about.
For personal incoming I have with Taiwan Co-operative bank so I have not needed to go there to sign a form for years. I wired in money from HSBC HK to buy our property in cash. All they did was call and say our USD transfer has arrived and we put it into your NT$ account.
For online banks I do not know. Normally the remitter can say what the funds are for like credit card payment or home purchase or gift or living expenses.