GoKunming Forums

opening a bank account

debaser (647 posts) • 0

I went to the Construction bank today to open an account. Apparently we now need to provide a 'tax number' (along with some other stuff). Any idea what that is or where I find it? as a Brit I'm not aware of ever having a tax number and I'm more than a little reluctant to give my UK National Insurance (NI) number. Some people are telling me that the number is issued by the Chinese government while others say it's my NI number.

AlPage48 (1394 posts) • +1

And if you're not working you still need to register. My wife and I had to fill in a form but it basically said we don't work in China and pay our taxes in Canada.
That was at Bank of China and they told us what to put on the form.

JanJal (1243 posts) • 0

Brief replay of the relevant parts in "Proposed IIT reform" thread:

As @tigertiger wrote, you indeed get Chinese Tax Identification Number, if/when you have taxable income in China, and your taxes get paid. Often this is your passport number, but according to internet sources this varies by locale.

However, banks (in China and elsewhere) also increasingly require to provide similar tax identification numbers (or equivalents) of your home country, and every other countries the individual has possible tax obligations to.

This is because countries (China included) have treaties to share banking information with other countries, to make international tax evasion more difficult. These are increasingly getting implemented and enforced globally.

Especially when dealing with countries that (under certain conditions) tax people's global income, lke USA or China.

For example, the banks in my home country in Europe require to declare my global tax obligations, in form of these same Tax Identification Numbers.

But they do it specifically citing requirements from US authorities, even though I (like most people in the country) have no connections whatsoever to USA.

But if the banks want to have business in USA or with their US counterparts, they have to comply to those US requirements, and then I have to comply to theirs.

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