Take action against Taiwan bank tax residency tax certificates

[Andrew]

@fifieldt

Thanks to a case that landed on my desk, a veteran civil servant making a few calls, and some of the right people at the bank, this issue may be closer to resolution at one bank.

Taishin HQ took a look at the actions of the teller in a case where a foreign national tax resident only in Taiwan was told to fill in a TIN for their passport country and agreed that should not have happened. Further, rather than just fixing the case (which they did), they stated they plan to roll out changes to fix all such cases.

I guess it will take a few months at best, but at least those guys over at Taishin are willing to listen and try something.

Thanks for pushing along with this. But it’s not only about some customers needing a TIN for their passport country, but also the fact that their passport countries appear at all on these certificates (along with “NOTIN”, which I think is not how banks are supposed to be using that code).

This is what Richart/Taishin came up with back at the start of this year if I remember correctly, and it’s how they’ve treated my withholding tax certificates so far. They asked four times during the application process whether I’m really only tax resident in Taiwan, and then decided “oh, he’s probably tax resident in the UK anyway”.

@Andrew

The tax residency bit is rather pushy:

Are you exclusively a tax resident of the Republic of China (Taiwan)?
Yes No

Yes No

If you have a country’s nationality typically means you are this country’s tax resident. Please confirm your tax residency is reasonable!

Next

Having a country’s nationality typically means you are tax resident of that country. Please confirm you are a tax resident of the following country or countries: TAIWAN
Back Confirm

Back Confirm

Please make sure that you are only a Tax Resident of Taiwan. If you choose this option, Richart will contact you to confirm. If proved you are not only a Tax Resident of Taiwan, you will have to visit a Taishin Branch to renew system information to continue the account application process.
Back Confirm

Back Confirm

Jesus, I told you already. No need to ask me four times.

Are they intending to fix that too? It’s not clear to me from what you wrote if the proposed solution just means removing TINs when they shouldn’t be there for foreign customers only tax resident in Taiwan.

This would just mean their forms appear the same as mine are now, i.e., still indicating tax residency in the passport country just without a TIN, which is pretty much what started this discussion in the first place and the thing we weren’t happy with…