Dogmatix

We might wait a long time for the redesigned PND 90 tax return form with the spaces to claim tax credits. Tax credits have already been claimed under DTAs without a new form, so they may not feel a strong compulsion. PND 90 only covers income from employment. So they would also need to redesign PND 91 covering income from other sources. Since it is unclear whether foreign state pensions are considered income from employment, which technically they are not, or income from other sources Or perhaps are not assessable at all like the Thai old age allowance). If they are considered income from other sources state pension income should be reported on the PND 90 tax return which is more detailed and complicated to file than PND 91. Anyone who remits post-2024 interest or dividend income or cap gains & etc will have to fill in PND 91 anyway. Whether income, including state pensions, are considered PND 91 or 90 affects the threshold for filing a tax return. If it is PND 91 (income from employment only) the threshold for tax filing is 120k but, if it is PND 90, it is 60k only.

I was here for a about the last year of tax clearances but I had no idea what the process was like. My secretary used to take my passport and give to a messenger in the morning who went to the tax office and brought it back the same afternoon with a tax clearance stamp in it. I would sign an approval for petty cash to pay for it but can't remember how much it cost.

Since when has it been the role of the Education Ministry to decide what goes on the list of prohibited drugs.

A return to democracy should at the very least involve respecting the results of the election rather than installing this corrupt family owned party in power.

Re the view that remittances generated by use of foreign credit card payments being not remittance of income but short term loans advanced by the credit card provider. I can see the logic to that but doubt it would hold up in the tax court. It certainly wouldn't apply to direct debit cards or ATM withdrawals direct from a bank account. I think a loan would need a specific loan agreement and to come in as a lump some, not in dribs and drabs as the taxpayer makes his purchases. Theoretically you could pay off your credit card with tax exempt pre-2024 income but I think that all remittances via foreign credit card, debit card or ATM withdrawal are going to be deemed assessable, is self assessed or, if the RD somehow finds out about them.

I raised this in Part I but don't have an answer yet. Excluding US social security which is taxable only in the US under the US DTA, how should taxpayers declare state pensions they remit from other countries? There is no state pension in Thailand and consequently there is nowhere to declare income from a state pension in the Thai tax return forms. The closest equivalent in Thailand is an old age allowance which I believe is not assessable. I have been collecting this paltry allowance for a few years, just because I have paid Thai taxes and am entitled to it. It never occurred to me to declare it for tax until now but I just searched in Thai for opinions as to whether it is assessable or not. I didn't find anything definitive yet but chats on sites like Pantip show divided opinion. Some say it is assessable and some not. My personal opinion is that it is not. There is no documentation available to verify this allowance. You just apply at the district office and receive it indefinitely with never any proof of life certificates requested. If assessable, the RD would mention it somewhere in PND 90 and 91, in my view, and would either demand documentation to verify it, which is impossible, or would have confirmation directly linked to the RD from the Finance Ministry which it doesn't, although it does have electronic links to other sources of income and deductions - deductions verified by e-receipts pop right up in your personal tax return account when you log in with a message asking if you wish to claim them. State pensions are clearly not income from employment and there is an argument that they are no different from Thai old age allowances and therefore not assessable, assuming the the latter is indeed not assessable. There could be an argument that the are indirectly income from employment because you don't usually get them without having worked and paid contributions. I suspect the RD would make this argument to avoid letting state pensions slip out of its net but it is a fairly big stretch IMHO that might not stand up in the Tax Court. I suppose they could also argue it is income from investment, if you have to make contributions, but that is a stretch too. The UK DTA doesn't mention state pensions other than pensions paid to retired civil servants. The DTA I have seen that mentions them is the US DTA vis a vis social security. The UK DTA doesn't mention private pensions either for that matter and nor does the RC but they can easily be deemed income from employment or investment..

I would say it is not that the RD will give people a pass in respect of assessable foreign source income remitted in the tax year it was earned in years prior to 2024 due to P. 2161/2566 but that they have for the most part given a pass since the ruling in 1987 that clarified that foreign source income remitted in the tax year it was earned was assessable. This has been largely unenforced.

Yes, Thailand plans to do it and my post was not nonsense. I was simply reporting on what was said in the French embassy video to try to be of some help to those who cannot understand French. It will be extremely difficult for the RD to enforce taxation of foreign credit card expenditures in Thailand by tax residents but that is what they said they will do. It will probably rely largely on self assessment.

The question of whether withholding tax would be deducted from foreign remittances was asked in the French embassy video and the French speaking RD lady said, "Fortunately not".

This case predated the gift tax amendment to the RC. Gifts were tax exempt without limitation then but the definition of gift in the RC but the prosecution case re the huge gift to her brother-in-law was this was not a gift because it wasn't made according to Thai traditional custom etc, based on the same definition that applies to gifts to non direct relatives today. Therefore the prosecution argued it was regular income. Potjaman's defence was that it was a wedding gift two years after his wedding. That was rejected by the court of first instance and the appellate court but finally accepted by the supreme court - money talks. Potjaman's secretary was also convicted for organising all this but later acquitted. Interestingly l can't recall any charges against the recepient of the gift. Not sure what happened to these shares or the proceeds from them when Thaksin sold out to Temasek. .

Somporn co-owns the house with her 74-year-old Australian husband. The article doesn't explain how this is possible. He is unlikely to be a naturalised Thai citizen, since they spend most of their time in Australia. Therefore it is more likely that she owns the home outright and he owns nothing.

Absolutely. I paid double the price from my house in a gated community where some senior cops reside than it would have cost in the same area just outside the gates. Never regretted it for a minute. Friends who bought or built stand alone houses or even houses in low quality gated communities that hire dodgy guards have nearly all reported numerous burglaries. One friend was burgled in a stand alone house in Bangkok by a very small person who climbed in through the small ensuite bathroom window and nicked his wife's handbag from the bedroom and departed without waking them up. He also has a stand alone house on Samui that has been ransacked so many times that he gave up having a TV set or anything worth taking there.

Telling Thais he is going to get them exemption from Schengen visas is like the airforce saying the US would sell them F-35s. Both knew it was impossible but playing childish political games. Perhaps Srettha hoped to distract publish attention from his outrageous appointment of the Thaksin's corrupt 2 million baht in a cookie box lawyer who took the hit for him like so many others.

If it remains unclear, how will professional advice be able to clarify it? Many of the people claiming to be expert tax advisors appear to know a lot less than we do, judging by their podcasts etc.

The question was how might it take for Thailand to introduce global taxation? At least 5 years is a reasonable guess but this is something that would require an act of parliament and would probably need to be part of government policy which it is not at the moment.

Another point from the French embassy video was that the Thai guy, who couldn't speak French, said in English that expenditures on a foreign credit card in Thailand are deemed as remittances. He said that taxpayers who use foreign credit cards in Thailand would have to submit their credit card statements, presumably translated into Thai, if not in English. This must apply to debit cards and ATM withdrawals too. He didn't say what part of the tax return form this income should be declared on but logically you have to declare the income used to pay the card bills, rather than the expenditures made with the income, assuming it is a assessable income in the first place. In fact the credit card statements are merely proof of remittance, not of income, but he didn't make this point. Nowhere else have they said that taxpayers need to provide proof of remittance, only of income and of tax credits. He didn't mention the use of foreign credit cards to order goods to be shipped to Thailand. They can argue that the goods were remitted to Thailand but that seems a bit of a stretch to me. Same with air tickets bought abroad for use in exiting or entering Thailand. I know some expats who live from ATMs and foreign credit cards without ever remitting anything to Thailand. I expect they will carry on as before without filing tax returns.

I think not really likely for some time. It is quite legal for someone to live in Thailand without having even enough assessable Thai income to have to file a tax return. You could have 100 mil invested in the SET and live off dividends subject to 10% withholding tax but take the legitimate option not to include in your assessable income or file a tax return. Your retirement visa could be done on the lump sum basis. It would need an Immigration order that tax returns are required for visa renewals or perhaps enforcement of the existing law for tax clearance certificates on visa renewal or leaving the country. Ultimately it is possible, if Immigration and the RD decide to coordinate on this. Consider the case of VAT registration required for a WP. I operated a business that only exported services and therefore had no VATable income and would ordinarily have not had to register for VAT. However, to get a WP the business had to register for VAT and file monthly VAT returns showing zero VATable income. In fact today we still have to do that long after I no longer need WPs, as the only easy way to get out out of VAT registration is to wind up the company.

One point that is generally overlooked is that many expats living in Thailand off foreign source income were in violation of the Revenue Code prior to the effective date of P. 161/2566. The 1987 ruling clarified that foreign source income remitted to Thailand in the same tax year it was earned was assessable for Thai tax. Anyone who got their pension remitted direct to Thailand was very obviously required to file a tax return and pay Thai tax, subject of course to DTA tax credits. If those expats start filing a tax return for the first time in 2025 and the RD sees the evidence of pension being remitted direct to Thailand that was obviously in place before Jan 2024, they are quite entitled to ask how long the expat has been receiving this income in Thailand. Then they are entitled to do an audit going back 10 years, if tax returns were not filed, and arbitrarily assess tax, penalties and interest. Given that the RD didn't really attempt to enforce the tax on same tax year remittances in the past, it seems unlikely that they will do this now as a matter of policy. However, as we know that much is left up to the discretion of individual officers and inspectors, some of whom enjoy low hanging fruit, we cannot say the risk of this happening is zero.

The fact that Pichet has resigned doesn't undo puppet Srettha's decision to comply with the order from his boss to appoint this ex-con to the cabinet. The case shows how confident Tony has become in sticking it to the Thai people. First lose the election. Then renege on coalition deal to do a deal with uncles after getting his puppets to promise they wouldn't in order to put his own puppet in as PM and seize power in a silent while technically a prisoner. Then put in a convicted felon who was convicted committing a crime under his own orders as a minister. The other point is that it reminds Thais how willing Tony is to force his lackeys to commit crimes for him and risk going to prison including his own sister, not to mention Boonsong sentenced to 40 years for his role in Tony's rice pledging scam and others still in prison for the same thing. Meanwhile he organises his own way out without ever having to spend a night in jug.

It takes a long time for government departments to coordinate with each other but If this reinterpretation survives, it seems a no brainer that this will ultimately happen. If you take into account that they expect pensioners to have an income of at least 65k a month (and that number is about 20 years old and overdue for a substantial upward revision to take inflation into account) it is obvious that they feel foreign pensioners are well into the threshold for taxable income after basic deductions. In the past they demanded tax clearance certificates from expats working in Thailand to let them leave the country and that legislation is still on the books but no longer enforced. It would not be difficult to either start enforcing that again or make a new Immigration order requiring a tax clearance certificate or certified tax return for visa renewal. If this survives, I would say you are looking at 5 years grace period before that happens. If they still haven't sorted out how to do tax clearances or cope with out of synch tax years by then, it will lead to a mass exodus.

I had a quick butchers at that video of a discussion in French involving French embassy staff and RD officials regarding the Franco Thai DTA. It is quite funny because the French embassy people were arguing that Section 18 of the DTA says that private pensions from France shall only be taxed in France, while the RD was arguing that it says may be taxable in France which means it may also be taxable in Thailand, which is exactly what the RD intends to do. Looking at the Thai version it is extremely clear that it says "may be taxable in the first country" อาจเก็บภาษีได้ในรัฐแรก. Here อาจ or aat definitely means "may be." Looking at the French version I can see why embassy officials unversed in tax jargon and specifically DTA jargon got confused. The French version uses the phrase " are taxable in the first country (France)" or "sont imposables dans le premier Etat." However, in French DTA jargon this phrase "are taxable" has the same meaning as "may be taxed' in boiler plate Section 18s of English language DTAs, ie. are taxable in the first country and also are taxable in the other country. This is confirmed by looking at other sections of the Franco Thai DTA where the intent was clearly that certain types of income are taxable only in France. In these cases the French version inserts the word for only "que", as in "sont imposables que dans le premier Etat." This is further verified by comparing English and French versions of the Franco UK DTA where it is less likely that there were mismatches between the French and English versions. So this looks like a case where the RD officials were absolutely correct and the French embassy staff were incompetent because they didn't understand the French version of the DTA and failed to get a briefing from an expert at the French tax department to clarify before going to the meeting. Furthermore Section 19 of the DTA covering pensions paid to former French civil servants which is usually taxable only in the country of origin is also not protected under the French DTA. So the French negotiators in 1974 must also have been utterly incompetent, as it is possibly the only DTA that doesn't protect government pensions paid to retired civil servants. I glazed over a bit skimming through the rest of the video after watching that staggering interchange. But a couple of things I noted were as follows. When asked how to deal with the fact that French taxes are filed in April to June which means that French expats will not have supporting documents to claim tax credits when filing tax returns in March, the RD folk were unable to answer the question and the French speaking lady said they would get back to them at some unspecified date. Another point was that the RD folk said they would accept English translations of French tax documents along with the French originals but didn't mention whether translations would have to be stamped by an embassy and notarised by the Thai foreign ministry or not. She also said that originals of official French tax receipts would be needed. Given that many countries, including the UK, have a tax year and filing deadline out of synch with Thailand's which means that taxpayers will not have supporting documents to claim tax credits in March, even if the type of supporting documents the RD will demand are available at all, it shows a spectacular level of unpreparedness that 9 months after the reinterpretation order and half way through the tax year, the RD are unable to answer this question about out of synch tax years and filing deadlines between countries. Also they are clearly going to expect tax receipts certified and stamped manually by overseas tax officials like the ones that they provide but I am not sure how many Western countries can provide these. Another thing is that saying that English translations will be accepted contradicts what the RD official said in the Swiss Embassy video when he said that actually Thai versions are required but RD officers have the discretion to decide whether to accept English versions but aren't obliged to. Obviously the Swiss version is correct. Unless the law says English documents are acceptable, which the RC doesn't, then Thai bureaucrats are under no obligation to accept anything in English. It is unlikely that the RD will issue an order forcing them to accept English documents, given that most of them are not competent in reading English. Looking at that video reconfirms my thinking that attempting to claim tax credits for significant amounts of foreign source income should be an absolute last resort, until such a time as a reasonable and unified approach to foreign tax credits is established, i.e. not left to the discretion of individual officers, in the unlikely event that ever happens. If you go along to a rural RD office and explain that you paid tax in your home country on a million dollars of income that you remitted to Thailand in the tax year but have no documents to prove this because you earned the money in the UK from 6 April to 31 December and won't have any evidence of tax payment for a few months, what is the girl going to tell you? Quite possible you will be made to pay tax at 35% and told to try and get a refund of tax paid from your home country which might not be possible.

It is true that his power for now is mainly over PT but PT controls a lot, include the PM and Public Health Ministry which is all important to this topic. He is currently working hard to gain control of the new senate and hopes to install his brother in law as senate speaker which would give him a lot of control over appointments to courts and independent agencies that are currently still under Prayut and Prawit. That was power Tony used to devastating effect in the past, disabling the independent agencies. He will probably never have control over the military but could get control of the police back and I believe appeasing the police is a bit part of this and has always been very important to him. When he was first PM he shut down the Southern Border Command and seized control of security in the South to hand it to the cops, sending brutal Thai Chinese cops from Bangkok down there to take over key positions, replacing army officers who Prem had insisted should be Southerners who spend their whole careers there and were able to develop good contacts in all communities. The prize was all the smuggling income from oil, booze, fags, luxury cars etc coming over from Malaysia and people smuggling going in the other direction. The price paid by the South was devastating, as the Bangkok police thugs poured gasoline onto the flames of the Southern insurgency. igniting the whole region and leading to atrocities like Tak Bai. He has done remarkably well to regain as much power as he has only about a year since he was facing 10 years in jail. However, I agree with your sentiment that this is likely to be his swan song. He is out of touch now and doesn't have the same appeal with upcountry people or the young in general as he did and is unlikely to improve this much. Many of the die hard reds have deserted him over the dirty trick of doing a deal with the uncles and not standing by the coalition agreement with MFP. HIs daughter is not terribly bright and is nothing without him and is unlikely to develop much of a cult following of her own. Put her in a TV debate with someone like Pita and she would be shredded. But sadly Tony has enough power to totally destroy the cannabis industry.

Ok if the RD is not successful in getting the government to amend the RC to introduce global taxation, as they said was the ultimate goal when they introduced the reinterpretation which they said was only a stop gap solution. In that case becoming a non-tax resident would only exempt you from Thai tax on income earned in that year, regardless of whether it was remitted or not. However, there is a great deal of uncertainty about when or whether this can be done, as indeed there is about how the reinterpretation will be interpreted.

There is legislation that requires crypto exchanges to withhold tax on crypto gains at the rate of 15% but the last time I looked there was a notice on the Bitkub website saying that the RD has yet to make any moves to require enforcement of that by exchanges and that Bitkub has not yet been ordered to give the RD information about client accounts. No doubt this will all happen at some point but the the tax on gains, like many things here was not thought through and is difficult to implement. A reclaimable withholding tax on gross sales would have been a lot easier.

It's hard to say that gifting is not in the spirit of this legislation because what we are talking about is not legislation. It is a reinterpretation of a 1987 ruling that clearly interpreted the RC, the recent reinterpretation of which may well be held to be unlawful, if challenged in the Tax Court. I think it would be more accurate to say that the reinterpretation is not in the spirit of the legislation. The problem for the RD is that gift tax was introduced via a Royal Decree in 2015 as an amendment to the Revenue Code. There are some vagaries in the wording, as is normal in Thai legislation which likes to keep options open for contradictory interpretation in different cases, but nothing the RD DG can get her hooks into to attempt to amend with another legally dubious departmental order like P. 161/2566. It can only be amended by another Royal Decree, which can later be nullified by parliament, if deemed inappropriate to the emergency requirement to allow Royal Decrees to circumvent parliament, or by a proper Act of Parliament, involving public consultation and three readings in parliament. The previous treatment of gifting in the Revenue Code was that there was no tax on gifts but the definition of gifts was somewhat stringent and was the same for everybody. That definition was cut and pasted as the definition of gifts to people who are not spouses or ascendant or descendant blood relations. However, at the same time a new definition was introduced for gifts to spouses and ascendant and descendant relatives that is very broad, in fact, seems limitless. The actual text of Revenue Code amendment 40 of 2015 promulgated in the Royal Decree of 5 August 2015 signed by Gen Prayut is บุคคลธรรมดาที่ได้รับเงินได้จากการอุปการะหรือจากการให้โดยเสน่หาจากบุพการี ผู้สืบสันดาน หรือคู่สมรส. This means "Natural persons who receive money being support or gifts of affection to ascendant or descendant relations or spouses." There is nothing in the thus amended Revenue Code, as some ignorant, English monoglot commentators have suggested, that delineates how spouses may utilize these love gifts or anything, as some have even more ludicrously surmised, saying that gifts may only be made from income already subjected to Thai PIT. There is also nothing that says these gifts may not come from abroad. Indeed there is actually a RD case study that implies quite clearly that they can be made from abroad. There is also nothing much that can be found in publicly available information providing any ministerial or departmental regulations apart from the case study referred to above. However, the Civil & Commercial Code provides a definition of gifts that stipulates that a gift is irrevocable, except in certain circumstances delineated in the C&CC, such as bad faith of the recipient. There are several court rulings regarding the old definition of gifts, relating to a huge gift made by Thaksin's ex-wife to her brother. Since the old definition is now the RC definition of gifts to those who are not ascendant or descendant relations or spouses, these rulings can be considered as applicable to gifts to those not directly related. The rulings make clear that the gifts have to be made on a special occasion, such as a wedding. Birthdays are not mentioned and I would be extremely wary of making gifts to unmarried partners for this reason. So will the gifting rules in the RC be amended to close the loophole it appears to provide in the legally dubious P. 161/2566? Gift tax was introduced in tandem with inheritance tax and made effective on the same day. It is my belief that it will continue to be considered in tandem with IHT, rather than with the non-legislation of P. 161/2566. While Gift Tax was introduced via a Royal Decree, IHT was introduced as an Act of Parliament. Srettha actually ordered the RD to review IHT and Gift Tax soon after he became PM and a few weeks later it was reported that the RD had completed its review and made suggestions as to how to tighten up IHT and gift tax to generate more tax revenue but the details were not made public. Technically the government could do this with a Royal Decree but I feel that broadening the net of IHT which is an extremely unpopular tax in most countries through a Royal Decree would create a backlash and the government would think it safer to amend it through an Act of Parliament with token public consultation. Of course gift tax could be amended separately with a Royal Decree but I suspect they will continue to be considered together. The most likely outcome in my view is that thresholds for both IHT and gift tax will be reduced at some point. The tax rates could also be raised. If the gift tax threshold for spouses was halved to 10 million a year, that would still be fairly useful for most expats. A final point to note is that there is nothing to suggest that the spouses who receive tax exempt gifts should be Thai citizens. Foreign spouses are equally eligible.