Arkady

I have had a number of people over the years come to me to ask for help after being bilked by these fraudulent expat financial advisors. Most claim they are licensed but have no qualifications or licenses of any type. Even, if they are licensed in the UK for example and the customer is British, there is no UK coverage for customers not residing in the UK. The products they sell are invariably registered for sale only offshore and wouldn't be covered. The worst case was a guy who was invested in a managed futures fund which lost money heavily in the Subprime blow up year when managed futures were the only asset class that did well. He tried to get what was left of his money back and visited the owner of the advisory company in an office in Sukhumvit and was screamed at to get out of the office or he would call the police and use his connections to have his client deported and blacklisted. After a little research I discovered that the offshore company running the fund was actually owned by the expat advisor himself. The URL of the fund's website was registered to a condo address in Sukhumvit. He had set it all up with a a website that showed performance stats and a name that made you think it was based in the City of London. I lost touch with that guy but assume he lost 100% of his money as it was a pure scam. The fund was fake and the idea was to get as many suckers in as possible and then start showing terrible performance figures and keep their money, or most of it. The expat advisor was later exposed in relation to a football fund and is hopefully no longer operating in Thailand. No doubt he had been bribing Thai police to allow him to run offices with young farangs doing cold calling without WPs and who knows, if he could have got someone deported in his heyday. Another guy was put into a string of shady investments which seemed in the UK but were set up to have the look of something legit. They were all registered in the Isle of Man, so not covered by UK regulators. There were real documents online and to give the flavour one of the funds invested in the hospitality industry in the UK but had a fine print clause allowing it to "invest" in unsecured loans to affiliated businesses. It later turned out that 80% of its assets under management had ended up as an unsecured loan to another IoM fund that went bust. Other investments ended up worth no more than 20 cents in the dollar. My friend wrote the UK regulators and the UK Ombudsman but all said they could do nothing for him. He was recommended to make his complaints to the Isle of Man regulator but that was a waste of time, as they also offer nil protection to non-residents. The UK regulator did confirm that they had never had anyone of that name licensed with them, despite his claims. Finally I sent my friends to the Thai SEC to try to get the expat financial advisor to try to get the guy for providing financial advice without a licence. He got a meeting with some helpful young staffers at the SEC. They told him they were aware of these foreign criminals posing as financial advisors and preying on expats but there was nothing they could do under the SEC Act, unless he had sold something that could be deemed as a security under the Act. I believe the SEC has evolved since then and they have found ways to go after farang fraudsters and at least censure them and some have been prosecuted. The old line used to be that, if no Thais have been scammed and the police have been paid off, no crime has occurred but fortunately that has changed to a certain extent.

That seems to be what is not thought through, even though in Thai language reports they admitted they have been wanting to do this since the time that Abhisit was PM, i.e. 13 years. But many, if not most, of the items bought from Lazada and Shopee Thailand and drop shipped from China now seem to come via Flash and other couriers. Aliexpress also seems to deliver some things at least the last mile by Thai courier, although some packages from Aliexpress and Chinese sellers on Ebay come from the Singapore and Hong Kong post offices. Not sure how this all works, whether Flash is contracted by China Post or by Thailand Post. Aliexpress vendors seem to under invoice higher value packages automatically without the buyer having to ask, whereas US Ebay sellers often put up warnings saying they will report buyers who request under invoicing to the FBI.

The permanent secretary for finance, Mr Lavaron, was quoted as saying the Customs Department would make an announcement about this to avoid having to legislate it in parliament. So far there has been no announcement from the Customs Department. All their various types of announcements are listed here https://th.customs.go.th/list_strc_download_with_docno_date.php?ini_content=announce_160426_01&ini_menu=menu_Interest_and_law_160421_07&left_menu=menu_Interest_and_law_160421_07_160421_01&order_by=date&sort_type=0&lang=th&root_left_menu=menu_Interest_and_law_160421_07&left_menu=menu_Interest_and_law_160421_07_160421_01. Also there is nothing in the Royal Gazette searching under "value added tax"\, nor any Finance Ministry ministerial regulations on the matter. Has anyone seen an official announcement of the rescinding of the tax exemption? It look like it hasn't been announced yet and normally there is some notice period. I would think at least a month for a tax change of this type.

Let's not get too exercised about the provision to file tax returns, if you don't have any taxable income. PWC is correct that it is in the law but, as Dogmatix has explained, it doesn't seem to be enforced for good reasons. There are many other important aspects that are worth posting about.

They have told the media they will prevent shops selling fried flower but there is nothing about that in the draft bill. I searched the word flower in Thai and nothing. No questions about that from shop owners and growers in the public hearing at the ministry either. Perhaps it is something that will come later in ministerial regulations they don't need to get through parliament.

Yes. A PR's 13 digit ID number, which remains the same, if he upgrades to citizenship, should be used as his TIN. However, in cases where they or their company continue to use their old foreigner TIN, it doesn't seem to cause a problem. As a PR I filed for tax under my 13 digit number for years. Then I moved to a company that ignored me when I told them to use my TIN. They applied for a new foreigner TIN for me and insisted on using that the 3 years I worked there. I filed my tax return under my 13 digit number as usual submitting the documentation from the company with the foreigner number. The RD had no problem with this.

Interesting but no mention of the potential impact on the condo market, particularly in resort areas where there are hardly any Thai buyers and the developers have to cook up dubious schemes to sell foreigners the 51% that is supposed to be owned by Thais. Surely there are a number of foreign condo buyers who actually live in Thailand most of the year? They are obligated to remit the money for the purchases which could be taxable at 35% now. I am surprised the condo developers remain silent, as their train speeds on towards a brick wall.

I think it is fair to assume that they will do this in the not too distant future. They already demand evidence of tax payment of employee and company for renewal of NON-B visas from what I recall. Also they may well raise the monthly amounts and lump sum. Under the first Thaksin regime they were raised substantially when he first came to power in 2001 (I think the lump sum was raised from 200k, so 4x). If you have already been in the country long enough for file a tax return and pay tax, there would be a logic to this for sure. Some double tax treaties allow the country of residence to collect tax and make the taxpayer try to claim a refund of tax already deducted in the other jurisdiction. Others will allow the taxpayer to claim a tax credit for tax already deducted in the country of origin. If you are earning the minimum required for renewal, currently 65k a month, you are way above the threshold that requires you to do a Thai tax return. So Immigration could easily ask for a certified copy of your prior year tax return. The current forms have a space to declare foreign income but I don't think there is anywhere you can claim a tax credit under a foreign DTA.

Before COVID Chinese buying of condos had become a huge chunk of the developers' market and has apparently been creeping back since the Chinese have been allowed to travel again. China has a double tax treaty with Thailand but it seems only to address corporate tax payers, not individuals. Perhaps China was only concerned about its state owned enterprises at the time. Anyway most of the money is assumed to be earned in the black economy in China and wouldn't benefit from a DTA. So for any Chinese who spends over 180 days a year in Thailand the idea of having to pay tax on money brought in to buy a condo would be a bit of of turn off. Even for those who spend less than 180 days in country, the idea of foreign remittances maybe getting screened for income tax liability could spoke the market completely. Also when you think of a typical expat farang arried to a Thai who wants to bring in a chunk of cash to buy a bit of landed property for his family to live in, they could also be put off. Their money is not even going directly into a real estate investment which might eventually be granted exemption from scrutiny. It is technically being gifted to his wife.

This new interpretation of the Revenue Code to mean ANY previous tax year, rather the apparent intent which was the THE previous tax year, gives rise to exactly that concern, since it appears to set no limit on how long ago that money was earned. Not only that the interest earned on the savings account going back indefinitely could also be deemed as taxable when remitted to Thailand. The Revenue Code doesn't specify income from property or real estate, as many of the translations suggest, but actually says income earned from assets overseas which could be any form of income generating asset. Furthermore there is no separate treatment of capital gains in the Revenue Code. So any capital gains, say from selling a house at any time in the past, could be taxed at progressive rates as income, if remitted to Thailand.

A well thought out and explained commentary but there are some potential issues. A2 There is a ruling for the RD's tax lawyers from the early 2000s that I can't lay my hands on for the moment to the effect that foreign pension income remitted to Thailand by Thai tax residents in the year it was earned was indeed deemed taxable income. The RD has done nothing to try to enforce this probably because it would be too much trouble and very little would be collected, since a great deal of the pensions would be covered by DTAs. That is still true but this idea doesn't seem very well thought through, so nothing can be said to be impossible. B Section 41 of the Revenue Code indeed appears to say that income earned abroad in the previous tax year is taxable when remitted to Thailand and that has always been the RD's interpretation until now. However, when you look at the Thai original and take into account that Thai has no definite or indefinite articles, you can see that see that it could be interpreted as income earned abroad in a previous tax year is taxable when remitted to Thailand. And that unfortunately appears to be the interpretation that Srettha as finance minister has instructed the RD to make. If you consider the intent, it seems that the previous interpretation was intended. That is a wordy language and makes up for vagaries like having no definite or indefinite articles by adding more phrasing for the avoidance of doubt, e.g. "in any previous tax year whatsoever". But the drafters didn't say that which implies they meant only the previous tax year for which you have to file a tax return. Some may say this interpretation is non-intuitive and is merely a sleight of hand tactic by the government to try to raise more revenue without the need to subject amendments to the Revenue Code to parliamentary scrutiny and test the unity of the marriage of convenience coalition. It could be that the new interpretation will be challenged in the tax court. D The exchange of information agreement is a concern in this context. I received a letter from the UK taxman accusing me of concealing income that had obviously come from a bank somewhere reporting a remittance. I had to pay my tax accountant to send them a letter explaining that I was a non-UK tax resident but regularly filed tax returns on UK sourced income. The same could easily happen in reverse in Thailand.

Aciclovir cream applied within a couple of days of the outbreak around my eye lessened the severity for me. It was still under patent under the name of Zovirax at that time and very expensive. A doctor at BNH prescribed it for me in a tiny tube and I bought more tubes for half that price but still very expensive at a pharmacy. Fortunately the patent expired some time in the 90s and aciclovir is now readily available as a low cost generic. There must have been thousands of shingles and herpes sufferers who couldn't get access to the medication while it was still under patent.

A troll post was deleted.

Thanks for all responses. I am wondering whether to get Zostavax, while waiting patiently for Shingrix, after reading Sheryl's comments. But there are some suggestions online that it can cause shingles and that the US FDA cancelled its approval which is worrisome, if correct. I had chicken pox as a kid and had a nasty dose of shingles around my eye and forehead in my 40s. So the virus is definitely resident in my body and could come out at any moment, the risk increasing with age. My mother had a horrific dose of shingles in her 80s and I certainly don't want to go through that, if it can be avoided.

The last time I had to show my ID to buy alcohol was in a hotel in Pakistan.