I didn’t say you couldn’t. I’ve also done that.
“Generally” and I’m betting it was a sticking point until you argued a little…
Just to add on how rubbish their thinking is.
You can be a tax resident of Taiwan, and no other countries, without an ARC, TARC, or 身份證.
The most obvious examples are working holiday visa holders and NWOHR with no other citizenship going down the 7 year path to get a TARC
They don’t care about reality or the law. They care about the idea in their head. This idea was put in their heads by someone else with no clue. And it goes on and on
Not really tbh. If I remember correctly, CTBC came back and asked me about my job and I said I was a freelancer/self-employed and didn’t work for a local company so couldn’t give an employer address. I don’t remember any of the others asking, except for Richart on the application form and over the phone, where I wrote/answered something similar. So for me, generally it wasn’t a problem.
Different experience to me. But it doesn’t matter. I didn’t say it was impossible though
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This is actually more common than you think for Taiwanese citizens. 20,000ish per year go to Australia on working holiday visas, the ATO does not grant tax-residency to ANY working holiday visa holders.
However Taiwanese citizens would generally also not be tax-residents of Taiwan either because the Taiwan Tax Office only has a days in Taiwan requirement, visa status is irrelevant. So they would have no tax residency anywhere.
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I just got another callback from CTBC. Same friendly lady as before, and after checking with some other department she told me that I shouldn’t worry because even though it says “GB” and “NOTIN” on my tax statement they wouldn’t be reporting my info to the foreign tax authority under the CRS - they’d just be reporting it to the Taiwanese tax office for the purposes of my taxes in Taiwan.
I told her I don’t believe this can possibly be true if (i) they’re writing “GB” and “NOTIN” on the tax statement and (ii) CTBC and Taiwan are complying with the CRS. AFAIK, once the bank reports this info to the tax office here, the tax office is obligated to share the info with the listed foreign tax authorities. I’m wondering if she misunderstood that although they won’t be reporting info to foreign tax authorities, the Taiwanese tax office will.
The explanation she gave me seems to imply that the bank has some way of selectively not reporting the foreign account holder under the CRS despite what’s written on the tax statement, because there are situations where they would be required to report, e.g., if I had assets in another country I needed to pay tax on.
I don’t buy that this is plausible, right? They seem to be asserting that it’s fine to have “GB” here and they’re just using this field to record my passport country…
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If it is the case they are filing tax paperwork incorrectly, have been corrected (Andrew, record your conversations, emails etc) then the bank is committing fraud. I would sue or report them for tax fraud. or both.
it is never the amount, it is the principle. plus with millions of cases, those little bits add up. banks are good at cheating a little, as to get away with it.
I agree with andrew. fuck them, they are crooks.
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Are you saying that you find this explanation believable and correct?
That is, that Taiwanese banks are entering our passport country codes in the “Tax Jurisdiction Code” field, writing “NOTIN” in the “Tax Identification Number” field (supposed to be for countries that don’t issue TINs), ticking the box to say we’re not tax-resident in Taiwan, and passing all this to the Taiwanese tax office, but the tax office is somehow not passing this info to foreign tax authorities as they’re required to under the CRS?
This doesn’t seem very plausible to me…
There are situations where this info should be reported, and if banks are filing the paperwork this way it suggests they have some other way (not shown on the forms) of deciding who they need to report and who they don’t.
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It literally says ‘tax residency’ on the paper and this is the same lie the branch staff tell.
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I know folks, I just wanted to show you that I have written proof of this.
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It is fraud. 100%
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It’s probably a waste of time, but I just sent long-winded messages via the “Contact Us” buttons of the Taxation Administration and the MOF websites asking for clarification, in case anyone else wants to do the same. I sent it to both because I didn’t know which would be more suitable. 
This is what I wrote:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to you about what I believe to be a common error with how Taiwanese banks report tax residency information for foreign residents of Taiwan under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). I am a British citizen living in Taiwan under the Gold Card program, and I have recently received my “Withholding & Non-Withholding Tax Statement” for the interest paid from one of my bank accounts in Taiwan (CTBC), which lists my “Tax Jurisdiction Code” as “GB” and my “Tax Identification Number” as “NOTIN”. I believe this information to be incorrect under CRS rules.
I am solely tax-resident in Taiwan and have lived here for >183 days per year for the last several years (like almost all countries in the world except for the USA, the UK does not tax based on citizenship, and I have not been resident in the UK for over 12 years). According to CRS rules, upon opening a bank account, foreign residents must self-declare any other tax residency they hold. However, this does not mean that foreign residents are also tax-resident in their country of citizenship, as is often assumed by Taiwanese banks, who frequently require foreign residents to enter their country of citizenship in the CRS self-declaration forms even when they are no longer tax-resident there.
For foreign residents of Taiwan from countries except the USA and staying >183 days per year in Taiwan, it is entirely possible (and indeed common) for us to be exclusively tax-resident in Taiwan, under which circumstances no additional tax jurisdictions should be entered on the CRS self-declaration forms.
Similarly, the only entry that should appear on my “Withholding & Non-Withholding Tax Statement” in the “Tax Jurisdiction Code” field should be “ZZ” (for Taiwan). Because I do not have tax residency in the UK, banks should not be completing this form with “GB”. In addition, to my understanding they should also not be using “NOTIN” in the “Tax Identification Number” field - this is only for countries that do not issue TINs.
I have recently had this conversation with employees of Mega International Commercial Bank, which took approximately 90 minutes to solve, and I am currently discussing it with employees of CTBC bank because I believe this reporting to be incorrect under CRS rules - besides being very time-consuming, this affects many foreign residents of Taiwan and has the potential to cause us problems in our original countries when we are incorrectly reported as being tax-resident there when we are legally only tax-resident in Taiwan.
I would like to kindly ask for some clarification from you on this issue - specifically, your confirmation that foreign residents of Taiwan who are only tax-resident in Taiwan should not be required to falsely declare tax residence in their original countries when opening bank accounts in Taiwan, and that no additional tax residency should appear on our “Withholding & Non-Withholding Tax Statement” documents when we are exclusively tax-resident in Taiwan. Thank you in advance for your assistance.
(If anyone else does decide to write something, note that the Taxation Administration website doesn’t accept brackets or certain other symbols in the body text, so annoyingly I had to go through and remove those at the end.)
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Eritrea is the ONLY other country that taxes citizens abroad
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Yeah, I know. I originally mentioned Eritrea too then figured I should quit rambling and stuck with the US. 
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Yeh no worries. Just wanted to point that out
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HSBC Taiwan - “The form we filled out that said tax residency and 稅務居留權 doesn’t mean tax residency at all. It just means the country that you are from.”
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Yeah exactly, it makes no sense. AFAIK, this is also essentially the same info they send to the tax office, so this explanation would rely on the tax office also reading “Tax Jurisdiction Code” as “citizenship” or “passport country” and not reporting it to other countries.
When I was dealing with Mega Bank a couple of weeks ago, the staff were also apparently unaware of the rules as described on their own form right in front of us…
…and CTBC just called me back to ask for a photo of the back of my tax statement form, because underneath “Tax Jurisdiction Code” there’s some bracketed text referring the reader to more detailed guidance on the back of the form.
The back of the form is completely blank. 
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This email proves HSBC do not even understand what data they need to collect in order to be compliant. Let alone the whole purpose of the standard, which is to track who should be rightfully taxed where.
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