jacob29

Not stupid if you want to stay 180 days a year, as you almost certainly will get heat from immigration doing that for long enough. Tax implications at 180 days apply whether you're working or not, so that's not a consideration either (never mind the fact a digital nomad is usually paying tax somewhere already, so it's not like much changes beyond the brackets if that's Thailand).

If you're on a low income, your tax liability will be negligible (along with your audit risk), so it's hard to see why you would be bothered either way. Even if you're audited, and get hit with penalties (e.g. 100% fine), they likely won't be significant. Someone with high income on the other hand. I believe they're the people who are primarily concerned. Agree occasional use of ATM withdrawal being missed, that could be framed as a genuine oversight, is a non issue. I expect a lot of people will rather take your comment to mean funding most to all your expenses with ATM withdrawals is a very low risk venture, and I'm not so sure that will be the case.

Other countries seem to manage just fine, Thailand is not attempting anything new or radical here. It's hard to find details on exactly how other countries that tax worldwide income go about enforcement, so I don't know how it works. As noted in the my previous post, presumably little to nothing is checked until someone gets audited.

It depends on your risk tolerance. If you're hit with an audit, and you're asked how you fund your living expenses - that's when things may get awkward for people who officially have indicated 0 taxable income. Enforcement doesn't happen at scale (in any country), it's the audits you need to concern yourself with. Not sure how in depth Thai audits are, but I know in other countries you don't want to mess around.

Unless foreigners only started doing this in the past few years, which we can be pretty certain isn't the case, it doesn't have anything to do with recent price increases.

They have as much capability as just about any other country with similar tax laws (which is most). I find it highly implausible that such a trivial strategy would work in practice. Anti money laundering checks sometimes request similar information (source of wealth), there is no chance it's as simple as falsifying international tax returns - or crime groups wouldn't need to go to extraordinary lengths to launder money

How long do you plan to stay? If this is your first time to Thailand, you can probably get by on 60 day tourist visas for a year or two, just spend a week or something outside. The people facing problems, have usually been doing this for years. I don't know what the magic number is, and it no doubt varies depending on the immigration officer. In your case, I would go with 60 day visas with short breaks, until you get a warning. I don't know when that warning will come, but I believe most people get a warning or some kind of hint that next trip they may be denied. If you're dead set on staying for many years, Elite visa would be lower hassle/stress though expensive option.

Seems like wishful thinking. I doubt credit cards can even be paid off directly with a cross border or wire transfer. If they could - it's implied that transfer (to a domestic card) is taxable already, since it has to happen in local currency.

I agree there may be enforcement road blocks, but Malaysia has been pretty clear on this. They state cards with foreign financing are included, which seems implied that the card itself is foreign. https://www.ccs-co.com/post/received-in-malaysia Credit card transactions over $10k are almost certainly already tracked under existing rules, the framework is in place. It doesn't seem like a stretch to provide a financial year summary for combined transactions above a threshold, it's more a question of whether they will bother - not that they can't do it.

It's a bit early to jump to that conclusion. Malaysia has similar rules to what Thailand introduced, and they explicitly include all electronic forms, including ATM/debit card payments. Enforcement is another matter, the trouble being that this can be enforced years after the fact.

You still (mostly) need to exchange it at a money changer.. which is not too hard to work around for smaller amounts, but less so for large sums without a trusted third party.

I agree. They don't need access to see remittance coming into the country though, the sender details will be on the transfer. Will they bother to match these up, seems highly unlikely initially, but the information is readily available if they care to follow up.

To where though? Majority of places will still tax you more (tax regardless of remittance). I don't buy that people are by and large living in Thailand purely for the tax perks. The regional exceptions seem to be Philippines and Malaysia, and I think Malaysia is essential adopting the same model as Thailand. If you transfer it to her account abroad, then she remits it into Thailand, yes nobody would be the wiser. Otherwise it remains a remittance, same as if I made a purchase and did a wire transfer straight into the sellers Thai account, and presumably can be tracked - open question as to level of enforcement in practice.

Isn't the key that they wanted to have kids? There is a tremendous number of unplanned births. I've met plenty of men who wouldn't recommend it - and if I had to guess, they probably weren't big on the idea in the first place.

No, I don't get how that relates to your original post. Nobody much cares how you or I personally respond to these changes, that's a personal decision for which there is no right or wrong answer. What I'm addressing is how you seem to be painting Thailand as a now unfavorable destination based on tax status, when it's simply being aligned with most other countries - and what's more, it still has significant advantages over taxation on worldwide income. Not being taxed on money that is left abroad, can be a massive benefit over countries that simply tax regardless of remittance.

Modern smartphone security has evolved dramatically over the last decade or two - whatever you have forgotten in most cases no longer applies. You can't even address the simple examples provided of how (windows) PC based security falls well short of smartphones, instead opting for a confused emoji - fair play at least you were being honest.

You're not really in a position to be calling anyone an idiot on this, when you seem to have no idea how the security model of modern smartphones works - and believe laptops are inherently safer.

Based on the current Royal decree 743 this is true, but there seems uncertainty around whether this might change next year. The decree explicitly cites revenue codes that will either change, or no longer exist - it may need to be amended on the basis that the sections of revenue code it cites no longer exist. The LTR visa cites the tax exemption as bringing income one year after it was earned, to be exempt. Which always seemed a bit odd, as it is the same perk anyone else has, it's not unique to the LTR visa. Which is what makes me suspect the LTR visa conditions (for newly issued ones at least) will be changed.

There was no deal stipulating these conditions would never change, and it's a little bit absurd that you seem to think that's how things should work. In fact it's insanity to think the expat population should block domestic policies targeted to Thais - as they certainly can't introduce this legislation for Thai nationals while exempting foreigners. If your plan is to stay under 180 days in all countries - that's fine, and you can still do that in Thailand. You wouldn't actually be leaving Thailand, just spending less time here. You were implying you were headed to some other country you could become a tax resident in, and not pay tax on worldwide income. There are still some places you can do that, but by and large you wouldn't want to live there.

Do some more research into the topic - almost every country in the world has a tax on worldwide income, the exceptions are few and far between. The unique aspect of US tax, is that they will collect US tax even if you've severed all ties (except citizenship) and don't live there anymore. That's not what Thailand is doing. As for a statute preventing it, there was a statute preventing recreational Cannabis use as well. There are a few reasons this change might not go through, but it's not because it's impossible for Thailand to implement (when nearly every other country can and does).

ATMs aren't safe. Can't get your card skimmed doing a cardless withdrawal (through an app). Skimming is probably a larger issue than compromised apps - but skimming can be mitigated by avoiding outdoor ATMs. If someone is worried, buy a cheap phone, factory reset and *only* use it for banking - no apps, no web browsing. Short of state level hacking, this is about as low risk as it gets.

Phones are more locked down than laptops in terms of security. Try writing an app that covertly records screen or logs keys, or digs around the file system content of other apps - can't be done normally. The hoops developers have to jump through to do things that are straightforward on laptops can be significant, or not possible at all. Not without finding an operating system level exploit. Yes a careful laptop user vs a careless phone user, will still see the phone user at higher risk. Two careless users though? My money would be on the phone being more secure.

It's not additive though, it doesn't create new challenges for defining what is taxable income, or challenges in how to deal with double taxation etc. In the same way a tax free income threshold doesn't change the fundamental implementation or details on what is taxable - it simply means below a given threshold you're exempt. In this case, that threshold is defined by what hasn't been remitted into Thailand. They will face unique challenges determining how much was remitted - if they care to enforce that precisely (which they quite possibly won't) - but if they just rely on self reporting it's dead simple.

I wouldn't say that. I would say the entirety of the alarmist interpretations (that Thailand is going to implement some completely unique method not seen anywhere else in the world) have precisely zero to back them up. I would bet money it's going to be largely similar to any other worldwide taxation regime in the region. With the key difference that for money doesn't enter Thailand, it's exempt. Not particularly complicated, remains favorable to an unconditional tax on worldwide income, and enforcement challenges are no different to any other country that has had this for decades.

They might be talking about it, but it's unlikely the majority are going to act - on the simple basis there's few alternatives. You make it sound like they can move to Cambodia or something. Nope, you'll end up paying more tax in Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam - I believe every single country in the region except for the Philippines. Since all these countries tax your worldwide income regardless of whether it gets remitted. There are some countries they can go (I think), but they're usually small countries. Nothing wrong with that if you like a quiet lifestyle, but it's not believable that the majority are are going to make that trade off. Same deal with Philippines, some people love the place, but it's not for everyone, even with generous tax perks.