All marriages are temporary lol some just last longer than others
Got a very CYA reply from MOI in English, will resubmit in Chinese. They are playing me by just saying residence, need them to use the Chinese word.
Let me try
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just submitted that document to the tax bureau near Beimen station in Taipei.
Had to fight to get them to accept it and process, used the argument of having TW banks overtaxing my interests as they always consider me as non-resident.
The supervisor even said that tax treaties don’t really matter, at the end it’s TW tax law which prevails.
This should be a warning to any entity trying to have agreements with TW, at the end only their own end matters…
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Correct me if I’m wrong but the law isn’t the problem. It’s the Taiwan Tax Office’s refusal to obey it?
The state in Australia I live in began an electric vehicle tax and some people took the state government to the high court who found that the states do not have the constitutional power to raise that sort of tax and only the federal government could. The court ordered the state to refund everyone 
The tax only existed for a year or 2.
Could you imagine if a court orders Taiwan to refund everyone affected from when the treaties were signed?
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Evidently, in this case, Schrödinger’s spouse. 
Guy
So my company sent me the year end Tax statement. And they put my nationality code under 居住地國或地區代碼 tax jurisdiction code.
However, I am not a resident or tax resident in my country for 2023. Is this correct? I asked them to confirm and they said for foreigners they just enter nationality.
Yes, exactly. The law as written is fine, just lazy… domiciled people are tax residents. The problem is NTB’s discriminatory and nonsensical interpretation of what it means to be domiciled.
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Nice one. I knew they’d put up a fight but you’ve just gotta be persistent.
Well, that’s true, but Taiwan’s parliament ratified the tax treaty right? So the treaty is…… wait for it…… Taiwanese law.
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They might have a point because those tax treaties are usually only consulted when the tax residency of someone is unclear, i.e. they are considered to be a tax resident in both territories. Then, the treaty serves as a tie-breaker and decides which territory can claim the person as a tax-resident (with many Western countries, they will actually try to make as many people as possible tax-residents because that means more tax money for them).
In this case, however, Taiwan is clearly stating that foreigners staying less then 183 days cannot be tax residents - thus, the treaty might not even apply because there is no conflict to solve - Taiwan voluntarily allows other countries to “claim” that foreigner.
A tax-treaty can usually only be used to “escape” tax residency in one country - but I guess it will be rather difficult to argue to assume tax-residency based on a tax treaty…
See for example the treaty between Taiwan and Germany:
For the purposes of this Agreement, the term “resident of a territory” means any person who, under the laws of that territory, is liable to tax therein by reason of his domicile, residence, place of incorporation, place of management or any other criterion of a similar nature
[…]
Where by reason of the provisions of paragraph (1) an individual is a resident of both territories, then his status shall be determined as follows:
So the treaty won’t really be relevant unless one could be considered a tax resident of both countries (which Taiwan is actively denying)…
On the other hand, the fact that still charges 20% flat tax might be used to argue that Taiwan does in fact see those affected as tax-residents (in some way) and thus the treaty should apply…
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the spirit of this fight is to recognise the principle of domicile for foreigners, which is apparently already recognised in some laws (nationality act), but then completely trashed in others (tax act and civil code as interpreted by some supreme court rulings), so there is no homogeneity of interpretation of the concept in the jurisprudence, creating thus a vulnus in the legislation with foreigners considered domiciled by the MOI but not by the MOF and hence also by the FSC and Central Bank.
In Italy this would be a clear case to appeal to the Supreme Court of Cassation, due to its role in the nomophylaxis of the country and have a standard and common interpretation of legal concept among agencies and laws.
I do think it is the same here in TW
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Germany is one of the exceptions where I think the wording of the DTA is less clear for supporting the point we’re trying to make (at least the English version - I haven’t looked at the German or Chinese versions, assuming they exist*). Article 23:
Residents 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 residents of that other territory in the same circumstances, especially with respect to residence, are or may be subjected.
I’m not sure why it uses “residents” here, but the non-discrimination clauses of most of the other DTAs use “citizens” or “nationals” or “citizens or nationals” or “nationals or citizens”. The ones prohibiting discriminatory treatment against “citizens” seem strongest, especially when they also mention “other or more burdensome” requirements (i.e., any differences) and “in particular with respect to residence”. I think it’s quite clear that Taiwan is treating foreign citizens in a discriminatory manner at present.
I’m not sure about the ones referring to “nationals” because of Taiwan’s unusual situation differentiating between “nationals” and “citizens”. I think they could argue that the treatment of foreign nationals is the same as that of Taiwanese nationals without HHR (and I think this has already been alluded to in some of the government responses, but I don’t want to make their arguments for them).
In the end though, I think this is all about interpretation and politics, and the point is to bring it up to our countries of nationality so they can discuss it, with the hope that they agree the current situation is discriminatory (irrespective of the exact DTA wording, which Taiwan doesn’t seem to care about anyway) and embarrass Taiwan into fixing it.
Also, even with “residents” in the Germany-Taiwan DTA, wouldn’t Germany say that the German individual ordinarily living in Taiwan wasn’t a resident of Germany (and thus a resident of Taiwan, especially when they hold an A(P)RC) after they’d abgemeldet (sorry if I’ve used the wrong verb form there - you know what I mean 
).
(*Edit: The English version says the Germany-Taiwan DTA was signed in German, Chinese, and English, with all three being authentic but the English version prevailing if the German and Chinese versions are divergent.)
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100% this. I think the tax treaty discussions are mostly a red herring, except where there are strong non-discrimination clauses like the UK treaty, although it’s a good way to apply pressure by getting foreign governments involved. The crux of the issue is how to determine that foreigners are domiciled.
Ultimately I really believe this needs to be litigated in the courts. Maybe only the Supreme Court will properly decide this once the case gets high enough to get media attention, but you need a procedurally valid way to get there. In response to an administrative act or decision rejecting your application for a certificate of residency, I believe the path to take is: request a recheck (same agency) → administrative appeal (MoF) → administrative litigation (Administrative Court) → legal appeal (Supreme Administrative Court) → moar appeals (Supreme Court of the ROC).
But I’m not a lawyer so what do I know.
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I also sent an enquiry to the Ministry of Justice, as the responsible agency for the Civil code, I sent the below question (in Chinese to avoid CYA replies like the one the MOI sent me, but I post the English version which I chatGPT translated):
I was reading the civil code, and article 20 says “依一定事實，足認以久住之意思，住於一定之地域者，即為設定其住所於該地。” According to a recent discussion I had with the ministry of finance regarding taxation, foreigners can never have 住所 in the country and can’t be for example deemed as tax residents as according to article 7 paragraph 1 subparagraph 1 of the income tax act, but always must demonstrate to have 居留 in the country for 183 days. However, according to articles 3 and 4 of the nationality act, regarding the naturalisations for foreigners and article 4 of the Enforcement Rules of the Nationality Act, only foreigners having 住所 in the country for the specified amount of time may apply to naturalise. Can you hence confirm that indeed foreigners can have 住所 in the country as intended in article 20 of the civil code, notwithstanding their impossibility to have household registration?
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You’re going to have such a big folder of bullshit at the end of all this.
(But still no 住所 
)
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屌
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I shredded my folder of bullshit 5 years ago I was so enraged at the end. It was a lot of paper but nothing useful.
It was relating to how ambiguous they were in how they give out citizenships and even if you fall into a class with experience, unless one is a well renowned person in that field, they would reject the application. In the end I was simply told that as a non citizen i had no standing to appeal and if I didn’t like it I could sue. Plus many FSC complaints about credit cards that went nowhere. And NTC complaints about phone deposits but ultimately they would bend the rule for me and then reinstate the rule for others so nothing changed.
And the government must have told immigration I was a complainer as when I told the agent at the desk about an issue I had filed about, she said oh we know all about you which scared me a bit. I said about what and she just smiled
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That’s interesting. It’s pretty much what I was wondering about recently when I wrote this post:
At least it seems she was nice about it!
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“Beacon of democracy in Asia”
Actually once all the martial law era government employees and MPs die in the next 10-30 years then they might actually start acting like a democracy where valid complaints are taken seriously and doesn’t make you a troublemaker but an upstanding citizen (or non-citizen)
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I hope you do as I do and record these conversations with government officials and bank staff lol
next time I shall.