You know I guess that’s why I stopped whinging and moaning. I just stopped being a foreigner in the system. Woe is me, life wasn’t meant to be easy was blown away by my ID card. Also I believe as Matteo works for a bank overseas he decided he wasn’t going to take the crap banks dealt out. HSBC no longer requires guarantor for foreigners for credit cards as he complained to the FSC. The policy makers at the banks just follow the others and never stop to think is this policy wrong or does it breach any laws.
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HSBC actually got back to me really fast about the 3 year expiry date complaint to the FSC. The lady is in the complaints department and told me she is investigating the reason.
I asked if it’s because I’m a foreigner and she said it could very well be a “misunderstanding” because of me being a foreigner… But their policy is both foreigners and citizens are treated the same (according to her) - so “should’ve happened” I then mentioned the 15% interest (it’s 14.97% but I said 15%) and how that compares to my Cathay interest rate of 3% and she said she will investigate that with the card team too.
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CTBC lass was funny on the phone after my FSC complaint. Did not speak to me in English anymore telling me English speakers are foreigners. So I ask why such a low 30K limit for a China Airlines Business card. I said that was insulting and pathetic. Could not buy a business class ticket with such a low credit limit. She replied well we just matched the limit on your Showtime card. I ask did you check my credit history at all? Silence. Then I told her Fubon gave me NT$250k limit with no documents provided. She asks that I send the approval of that with my HSBC PDF statements. She calls back a few days later to say the limit now increased to 250K but her supervisor wants to know why I get paid twice a year to my HSBC account. My response… is my income not enough? She gets all quiet. I said it matters not how may times a year I get paid and my HSBC income was not my only income just what I was prepared to show her.
The interest rate I got was 7.5% so there’s that. lol
PS I also showed her my tax residency for my NAB and HSBC HK accounts is Taiwan. lol
Then she asks how many accounts do I have in different names and nationalities. My reply, not telling you.
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Just received the below communication from the tax bureau that they received the chaser and they r going to reply ASAP…
Let’s see what BS they’ll come up with to justify their malpractice
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My guess is they assume everyone is American and say worldwide taxation applies to foreigners based on citizenship unless they renounce
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You would think so and generally yes. But they’re still stupid.
There was a news article if a naturalised citizen who was originally American (renounced and never resumed) so not a dual citizenship.
They still refused to open an account for him without his American tax details which no longer exist
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I think he lost his renunciation certificate (if we are thinking of the same case.)
As a former bank worker… I do understand why though… The US really tears you a new asshole if your bank is found to be negligent. The US is a lot more understanding when a person was born in Taiwan… thus why very little effort is done on inspecting citizens born in Taiwan.
I not sure if it’s the same one and I can’t remember the details
Either way banks are hopeless and don’t follow any CRS laws here. They just pretend to
I had a meeting about this today. Going to try and provide some training material to staff of certain branches of certain banks and see how it goes. Might need some assistance with testing later this year.
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Oooooo any hidden camera investigations?
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Could there be a leaflet in English with a Chinese translation that we can print out with common wrong assumptions about foreign residents for bank staff that officially comes from a government office for authenticity.
e.g.
-
banks/mobile providers can not discriminate based on nationality and require all foreigners to provide a guarantor. In most cases that is not necessary.
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most countries do not require their citizens to pay taxes if their main residency is in another country (unlike USA)
Would make it easier to shove it in their face once you encounter it again and again.
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Not most… all except Eritrea.
Great idea!
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Is Taishin/Richart involved in that? After all the BS where they ask three times about if you’re really really really only tax resident in Taiwan when opening the account, and IIRC your previous meetings with them that resulted in them changing some stuff, my withholding statements are still coming through with “GB” and “NOTIN”.
Most of them anyway - the one for the account opening bonus correctly had “ZZ”, but the discrepancy for the same bank and same customer is in itself weird.
I just received a response from the Taipei tax office. I didn’t know what the e-mail was at first and assumed it was something to do with me signing up for e-invoices at the weekend, given that I wrote to them five months ago back in March.
The response is pretty useless and uninformative, and it doesn’t really address what I wrote to them.
I think they might also have tried to do the old high school student trick of massively increasing the font size to make the letter look more substantive.
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Concerning point two , the banks pressure foreigners to declare they are tax residents of other places.
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Bunch of BS
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Yeah. And it’s nothing to do with the “living situation changing”, and they don’t specify what proof would be required. Point 4 is just wrong too - that’s not what the banks are doing when they use “NOTIN” (it’s not what I asked either).
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Yeah obviously. I posted it for other people’s info. Any more constructive suggestions about responding to it?
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Well, if u would like to take it to the national Human rights commission under the control yuan, you can lodge a complaint there.
Something I’ve already done and awaiting NTB reply.
I followed up again with the NHRC about my complaint against the NTB (letter sent yesterday), let’s see.
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