I’m about to split off a bunch of posts from the bank tax residency certificates thread, basically everything since @Mataiou’s response from the National Human Rights Commission of the Control Yuan, because I think that the discussion has now evolved into a much broader thing than taking action against bank tax residency certificates per se.
I’ll leave that thread open for any future developments/discussion about the tax certificates themselves, and I’m going to continue with my own complaints to Mega Bank and Richart/Taishin about how they handle them, but I think this battle against banks themselves has pretty much run its course if they’re just basing their internal policies on the interpretation of “domicile” used by the National Taxation Bureau/Taxation Administration/MOF. For their part, Taiwanese authorities appear unwilling to do anything about this, as confirmed by their responses to @Mataiou’s Control Yuan complaint as well as previous complaints I’ve made to CTBC and the National Taxation Bureau of Taipei.
What we’re talking about now is involving our own governments to try and encourage a wider-reaching change to Taiwan’s definition of “domicile” under Article 7 of the Income Tax Act as meaning “household registration”. The exclusion and differential treatment of foreigners here seem to violate the non-discrimination clauses of Taiwan’s double taxation agreements, e.g., for the UK:
Article 24 — non-discrimination
Citizens or nationals of a territory shall not be subjected in the other territory to any taxation or any requirement connected therewith, which is other or more burdensome than the taxation and connected requirements to which citizens or nationals of that other territory in the same circumstances, in particular with respect to residence, are or may be subjected.
Besides bank tax withholding certificates, the biggest implication of this seems to be that the residences of people whose centers of life are clearly here (e.g., long-term residents, ARC holders, APRC holders, people with homes, families, jobs, and so on in Taiwan) shouldn’t be solely determined based on the 183-day rule (as it isn’t with Taiwanese), and they shouldn’t be subject to a higher tax rate because they don’t have household registration.
I think this situation has probably caught a fair few people out over the years (e.g., anyone moving their lives to Taiwan in the second half of a year, or leaving in the first half of a year, or spending an extended period abroad despite Taiwan being their regular home). Not to mention everyone subject to higher income tax withholding from their salaries/wages for the first six months of each year.
I’m trying to restrain my optimism at the moment, but the initial responses seem promising, and if this differential treatment could be fixed by involving the tax authorities and/or Taiwan-based representative offices of our own countries… well, it’s fun to imagine Taiwanese tax authorities thinking at some point in the future “we really should have just let them write ‘Taiwan’ on their withholding certificates”. 
I’m hoping that more people will get involved in writing to their own tax authorities/representatives, but this is what has been done so far (to my knowledge):
- Italy: @Mataiou has contacted the Italian Economic, Trade and Cultural Promotion Office (I’m guessing) and they seem to be treating it seriously.
- Australia: @justintaiwan has contacted the Australian Office Taipei. No updates as of yet (presumably in the new year).
- UK: I’ve e-mailed the British Office Taipei, who seem to be taking the issue seriously and suggested I contact HMRC so they can start a Mutual Agreement Procedure with the Taiwanese side (will be doing this soon!). @Mataiou has also e-mailed someone he knows at the British Chamber of Commerce in Taipei.
- Germany: @slawa has contacted the German Institute Taipei. No updates as of yet (presumably in the new year).
- Canada: @jimbob132 is intending to write to them when he’s back in Taiwan in January, hopefully some other Canadians can get involved too.