The Taiwan high court ruled if the recording party was a party to the conversation then it is not an invasion of privacy.
Also if the reason is to protect his own rights then that too protects him from privacy laws
2 Likes
That’s good
Not at all. I told them I was recording “my” conversation so I did not make any mistakes on what was discussed. I do not need their permission. Save that law posted in the thread, along with article 62 for discrimination act and the FSC website. I did that after I had my second recording done. Did not record the last part… but put it this way… when I showed the anti discrimination law in Chinese and the FSC website the young guy we his pants and his face drained of blood. He knows whats coming with my FSC complaint.
1 Like
Received the reply from the National Human Rights Commission of the Control Yuan regarding my complaint against discriminatory treatment of foreign residents, have fun reading the amount of BS, it didn’t go well:
Basically the tax bureau just says that foreigners, even APRC holders, do not qualify to be domiciled as per how they interpret the relevant civil code art. 20 “A person who resides in a place with the intention of remaining there permanently, upon presence of supporting fact, is to establish his domicile at that place.
Every person has at all times one domicile, and no person has more than one domicile at a time.”, because they can always go back to their country or elsewhere, so they can’t be “permanent” permanent…
Really now want to do an administrative appeal against the tax bureau, although I already know they will shove to me some more BS… FFS
9 Likes
59 posts were merged into an existing topic: Taking action against Taiwan’s definition of domicile/residence relating to foreigners
I’ve created a new thread for the broader discussion of how Taiwan interprets “domicile” and efforts to change that:
Leaving this one open in case of future discussions regarding the certificates themselves, but for the time being our options there seem limited until Taiwanese tax authorities can be encouraged to change their guidance given to banks.
2 Likes
Okay so I’m going through this same rigmarole right now with my accountant for my tax statement. I said I’m not a UK tax resident, they said they checked with Taiwan tax office and it just means nationality, I said that’s obviously not true as it literally says different. What can be done? Does the Taiwan law currently dictate that I HAVE to put UK on the form, or am I able to actually leave it blank without issue?
1 Like
welcome to the dichotomy between what the law says and what the various agencies/firms do.
The law (Income tax act) is clear, as long as you are either domiciled or have been residing in the country for at least 183 days, then you are tax resident.
Now the crux is that according to the interpretation of the MOF/NTB and the “jurisprudence” of Taiwan, no foreigner can ever be domiciled in Taiwan. Which is pure BS.
I always pushs bank or others when filling in a tax residency form for me to just put Taiwan, you shouldn’t leave it blank (albeit in corner cases you have to, but let’s not make things even more complicated than what they are now).
If you are not tax resident in a jurisdiction then you don’t have to list it. There is a DTA between the UK and TW for that very reason, I would suggest you to complain to the British Office too as the good @Andrew already did, they are aware of this and for sure more protest messages will help the cause. I did that with my consular post already and will speak with them very soon.
2 Likes
Yeah it’s a nightmare.
So can I put “TW” as my “Tax Jurisdiction” on the “各類所得扣繳暨免扣繳憑單 Withholding & Non-Withholding Tax Statement” form? My accountant is telling me that if I really want to I can do it, but that because the Taiwan tax authorities literally says that’s wrong, then I could be subject to fines and penalties for it. I’m not sure what to do.
Yeah I definitely will as this is a shit show.
Also, the investment account I’ve recently opened in Singapore is asking for proof I’m only a Taiwan tax resident. I can’t very well show them my tax statement as proof if it literally says GB in the tax jurisdiction form. Then that would be two different countries reporting to the UK that I’m a tax resident there.
1 Like
I did that on my tax declaration last year (as I am self employed, I do my declarations online alone) and the NTB didn’t give me any fines.
NTB is going maybe to ask for clarification before sending fines
1 Like
Fantastic thanks, I’ll do the same then, and if fines do end up coming then it’s an extra reason for us to make sure this situation is stopped. I’ll DM you for how best to put a complaint in with the British office.
2 Likes
Where does this come up? Is it something you need to do when running a business? (I wouldn’t know about that myself.)
I thought “ZZ” was the code for Taiwan on the usual withholding forms received from banks etc. On the CRS forms though, I’ve switched between writing “Taiwan” and my ARC number and writing nothing (I think the latter is correct, at least on some of the forms I’ve completed, because it was asking about other tax residencies besides Taiwan, with Taiwan already being implied elsewhere on the form.
2 Likes
It’s on this form on the original post, in the parts circled.
here I concur with you, it all depends on the wording of the form though. need to pay lotta attention
2 Likes
ok, this form by banks will never change until the MOF/NTB changes their interpretation of art. 7 of the Income tax act.
Withholding at the source, such as interests given by banks, are always taxed for foreigners at the non-resident rate so “they don’t make mistakes”, since the extra amount withheld will be refunded during tax declaration and payment.
What a BS reason to lie on a form. You can fill in this form, it is compiled by the withholder, i.e. the bank. And they almost never match what you wrote on the CRS declaration.
3 Likes
That’s what I initially thought we’re talking about, but you don’t fill those out yourself do you? (Unless it’s something you do when running a business, which is why I asked about that.)
Hmm I’m not sure actually. It’s one of the docs my accountant sent me to check everything was correct and I said no and asked them to change it, which they seem to be doing.
I think those are issued by the banks themselves, at least for interest etc. as with the topic of this thread, nominally (but not really) based on the information provided by the customer (then falsified by the bank). Maybe it’s the same form for other types of income though?
Good luck to your accountant if they’re trying to get the bank to change it though. 
I previously attempted the same with CTBC and I think @Mataiou did too, and I’m still in the process of arguing about it with Mega and Taishin. Also complained about it to the tax office before, with the predictable bullshit response.
3 Likes
A minor victory for Team Annoying Foreigner today while I was opening an account at Fubon (Taipower Building branch, Taipei). As usual, when the CRS forms came out they wanted to list me as tax-resident in the UK. More specifically, the guy wanted me to include the UK in the usual table then use “be a British citizen but not a UK tax resident” as my reason for not supplying a TIN (I didn’t write that, obviously).
I explained all the usual stuff to the guy via Google Translate: I’m only tax-resident in Taiwan, I’m not tax-resident in the UK, I haven’t lived in the UK for 15 years or even visited in 9 years, I’ve been wholly tax-resident here every year since 2017 – here’s my entry/exit record, nationality isn’t the same as tax residency – here are the OECD guidelines, your only job here under Article 40 of blah blah blah is to confirm the reasonableness of my self-certification – here’s the law, and also read your own bloody form – it’s asking about my tax residency, not my nationality.
It was all relatively friendly, but we weren’t really getting anywhere so he went to get his manager and the four of us (I’m including Google Translate, who did a lot of the heavy lifting) went through it all again. The manager was insisting that the “I am only a tax resident of Taiwan” box was only for Taiwanese citizens and foreigners needed to tick the “I am not or not only a tax resident of Taiwan” box.
The next part was beautiful. I Google Translated something along the lines of “I’m not ticking that box because it’s not true. If I tick it, I’ll be lying.” This prompted her to call the head office, and after a short conversation… they actually agreed with me and said I was right and she was wrong. She made that noise Taiwanese people make when they’re really surprised, and the guy dealing with the account opening said “it’s okay” and gave the corresponding hand gesture. I was quite surprised too, but I’m British and reserved so didn’t make a noise.
After this the manager laughed, apologized, and scurried off, and the guy printed out a slightly different form that they appear to use for Taiwanese citizens and let me complete it saying I’m only tax-resident here. Everything was fine after that, though I did make sure to ask him to tear up the original form because I didn’t want them submitting that one instead after I left lol. All in all, I was in and out within only two hours, like lightning.
It was the same with Huanan Bank actually – one form for Taiwanese and another one for foreigners, where the former was only in Chinese IIRC. Posting some pictures below in case anyone else finds them useful (though looking again now, these forms seem pretty much the same except for the font and header – the Huanan ones were clearly different).
Google says that Taiwan has around 158,000 domestic bank employees. I’ve argued about this with maybe 15–20 so far at five branches of five different banks, with a success rate of about 50% (Huanan and Fubon were clear victories, Mega Bank a partial one because they let me say I’m only tax-resident in Taiwan but still listed me as holding other tax residency on their system without specifying any besides Taiwan). So a looong way to go!
11 Likes
Kudos to you for your persistence and for doing all this without screaming out loud.
May I ask however what is gained by working with so many banks? I remember you stating quite clearly that you are not employed by a local company (the ones that would insist you work with a particular bank to receive your salary) . . . so why go through this aggrevation across so many branches? It’s not like the interests rates vary widely . . . do they?
Guy
2 Likes