Dogmatix

Thanks for the link but it doesn't support the statement that she was attacked by the government over monetary policy as governor. On the contrary she was attacked by the private sector as governor for bowing under pressure from the government to introduce capital controls. For the rest of her time as governor she kept a low profile.

The suspect looks a bit overweight. Prison rations should soon fix that for him.

There is no justification for reducing rates at this point but this is Thaksin's style. He did same think in the first Thaksin govt and fired the governor of the BOT. Repeating this type of nonsense and repeating the land bridge project along with the vote buying digital wallet shows how bereft he is of new ideas now but is nevertheless determined to get firmly behind the policy steering wheel again. How sad for Thailand to have someone like that in charge again when they voted for a different party anyway.

I don't remember Tarisa, whom I was at Harvard with, being either attacked by the government or thanked for her stewardship of monetary policy. Sadly for her she was largely discredited soon after becoming governor because she was pressurised by her mentor the previous governor, ML Pridyathorn, who had been upgraded as coup government finance minister, into introducing capital controls for foreign portfolio investors which crashed the stock market and had to be rescinded a couple of weeks later with Pridyathorn famously saying that the SET didn't need foreign investors anyway. The problem was that Tarisa actually had no experience of monetary policy whatsoever, as she had spent her entire career at the BOT on the supervisory side, of which she was head before she became governor. So she didn't feel in a position to resist the pressure from her mentor in the government to make a catastrophic policy error, which is unfortunately what she is remembered for. I am not sure in what sense she was attacked by the government over monetary policy when she actually did exactly what the government asked without question and no one thanked her for it. It was sad because Tarisa had a very distinguished career in financial supervision and revived the reputation of the central bank in that area which was in tatters after the BBC scandal and the Tom Yam Kung crisis which was kicked off by the collapse of Finance One two weeks after the BOT gave it a clean bill of health following its annual audit. They actually thought Finance One was such a fabulous example of a well run finance company that they had given it approval to acquire a small bank. What Tarisa was famous for before she ruined her own reputation was in standing up to the Thaksin regime which had busied itself looting Krung Thai Bank when she was head of financial supervision. The Thaksinite finance ministry kept trying to get her to call off the dogs and threatening her but she never backed down and the CEO of KTB went to prison. Thaksin's son narrowly avoided prison, despite what seemed on the surface to be a fairly open and shut case of receiving funds stolen from KTB and laundering them.

If they believe they are going to attract more boozers, they should offset the loss of revenues from stoners after recriminalize weed.

I agree the impact on tourism will be negligible, partly because the supply chain won't pass on much of the tax reduction to consumers anyway. I don't notice any feasibility studies done by the government to project loss of tax revenue from wine vs incremental tax revenue from more tourists and/or more expenditures per head. Do the Chinese come to Thailand to get pissed?

The trend of foreign condo purchases in Thailand has evolved following the COVID-19 situation. The market slowed during the outbreak but recovered and grew significantly afterward, reflecting the returning confidence of foreign investors in the Thai real estate market. Sopon also opined that encouraging more property purchases by foreigners could be a policy to stimulate the Thai economy. He suggested the government define areas where foreigners are allowed to buy to mitigate security concerns and potential conflicts between Thai citizens and foreign property owners. He further stated that the administration should consider new policies and approaches to regulate and promote real estate transactions by foreigners in Thailand. This would help the market grow sustainably and benefit the Thai economy while preventing potential issues arising from such liberalization. Why does he want to restrict the areas foreigners, who are already restricted to 49% of usable space, can buy as a way to increase sales? Crazy.

The surge may come to an end when Chinese buyers realise they will have pay 35% tax on the money remitted to buy the condos, if they are in Thailand for more than 180 days in a year.

I think they are so concerned about EU data privacy rules that the Irish police don't know their names either. So how can they extradite them?

Thais and foreigners will definitely be using the gift tax exemption to cover overseas remittances, particularly as it was apparently suggested by the RD in its #4 to its first Q&A on P. 161/2566, possibly as a way for taxpayers to mitigate the impacts of the announcement. So it will take some time to know, if there is an issue, since the RD will not be able to follow up on overseas gifts made to circumvent P. 161/2566 until after 2024 tax returns have been filed. Since they have a backlog, it may take some time. If nothing is said, we might have to wait for a few years to be sure that receivers of overseas gifts from spouses have not been made to show that their spouses had paid tax on the gifts overseas (assuming the income was taxable in the jurisdiction it arose) and/or taxed and penalised. If that is the case, it would be difficult to place the burden on the receiver, as they cannot automatically be expected to have access to their spouse's overseas tax records. So the burden would more appropriately be placed on the giftor who may not be a Thai tax resident or even living in Thailand, as in the RD's case study กค 0702/530 on the topic of gifts made to a Thai resident by a foreigner resident overseas. As far as the Simple Tax Guide is concerned, I can see that it is probably useful to a number of AN members but I personally would hesitate to publish a tax guide rather than just post a regular exchange of views on tax, as in this thread or the big thread. A tax guide, unless it just quotes from the RC and the RD, contains opinions that AN has to be responsible for as the publisher and, if someone decided to claim they had been damaged by any part of it and filed a complaint, it could be problematic and disclaimers may not offer much protection. An area I have experience of is publishing opinions on Thai stocks which I know you have to very careful about to avoid the SEC coming around demanding to see licenses, WPs etc. Some publishers of such newsletters have gone to great pains to make it look, as if they were published overseas. Just my thoughts.

Let's have a snap election and boot out PT in favour of MFP. Then Yingluck will have to continue her extended shopping trip to Harrods.

I wonder what critical ailments Yingluck will suddenly be struck down by immediately on checking into the women's prison.

Souvenirs in tourist areas are mainly low quality tat imported from China or Burma.

Nothing. Just continue grinning like a Cheshire cat, racking up airmiles at taxpayer expense and trying to sell fake project like the land bridge to generate consultancy fees for Thaksin cronies.

Re Gift Tax again. The RD's answer in its Q&A on the remittance tax appears to specify that qualified gifts would be exempted. Here is the imperfect google translate. It mentions the gift tax exemption explicitly a propos of the remittance tax without adding that the gift must be taxed overseas and subject to a DTA or taxed in Thailand first. In some cases, it would not even be possible to pay tax on it first. Consider the case of capital gains in HK or Singapore that are not taxable where they arise? How would the gifter pay Thai tax on the income before gifting it, unless he is obliged to remit it to himself in Thailand first which is not the case. The Gift Tax law places the receiver under no burden to show the gift has been taxed. If a spouse, they are only obliged to declare an amount over 20 million in a year and pay a flat rate of tax of 5%. I agree that being conservative in the tax guide is OK but I don't agree with laying down the law and telling people categorically that gifts must be from taxed income without anything to support this view. I think it would be useful to tell people that this, like many aspects of this remittance tax, is not yet clear. QUESTION #4 What are the types of assessed income that must be subject to income tax under Section 41?, the second paragraph of the Revenue Code? ANSWER: Money has not been assessed from foreign sources at If you stay, you are forced to pay income tax including assessable income according to Section 40 (1) to (8) of the Revenue Code. However, if it is assessable income received that has received tax exemption according to law, taxpayers do not have to include it as assessable income to be taxed in Thailand, such as receiving an inheritance or receiving income received through the support of parents and trusted people, or from a spouse, as long as the money that is received does not exceed 20 millions of baht for the entire tax year.

They have no plan to make Thai manufacturers more competitive. They just want to protect Thai importers who mark up the prices with no value added. No helpful to Thai consumers.

The health minister is one of the Thaksin appointments that he is rumoured to be reviewing for replacement in a cabinet reshuffle. Given his slaughter of 2,000 alleged drug dealers he may feel Cholnan is being too soft on drugs. Anyway Cholnan vowed to quit if PT formed a coalition with the uncle parties. So why is he still around?

At least the MRNA vaccines apparently worked to some extent. What are long term effects of Sino Vax and Sino Pharm which did nothing except line the pockets of certain Thai politicians and Thai Chinese owned businesses?

To follow on re gift tax and IHT. Although the RD apparently prepared some draft amendments to toughen up these taxes at the request of Srettha, they haven't been publicised and don't seem to be a priority for PT at the moment. Srettha is finance minister as well as PM but has probably only been to the Finance Ministry once to light some joss sticks at the spirit house and order a costly renovation of the minister's office, given the previous incumbent was there for 8 years. As finance minister his only remit from PT/Thaksin is to get the digital wallet done and even this he has left largely to his deputy. Given the powerful PT factions and coalition parties, he has a very limited remit on things he can actually do on domestic policy and the party factions may not be keen on gift tax and IHT (or remittance tax). It looks like Srettha is short dated and is only left in place to fall on his sword, if there are legal problems with the digital wallet. Either way he will probably be pushed out by Thaksin soon after the digital wallet. I guess that by 2025 we will be looking at a new PM and finance minister who may or not get tough on all these taxes. But I seriously doubt that Srettha will get done whatever he ordered the RD to draft on IHT and gift tax.

The purpose of the gift tax imposed by the coup government was made quite clear when it was introduced in 2015. It was intended to close a potential loophole when they introduced inheritance tax. When you think that IHT kicks in at 100 million charged to heirs, not to the estate, it makes sense. Spouses are exempted from IHT but the 20 million exemption from gift tax also applies to parents and children who are not exempted from inheritance tax. Thus, if you were to spend 7 years gifting 20 million a year to a child and died at the end of that, you could effectively give a tax free estate of 240 million including the 100 million IHT exemption. (I use 7 years to make a parallel with the UK gifting limit, although there is requirement to survive 7 years in Thailand. Srettha said he ordered the RD to review IHT and gift tax when he first took office to increase revenue and the RD announced that it had done so soon afterwards. But no more has been heard of that until now. Bear in mind that the sleight of hand tactic employed by the RD to completely change the tax regime for foreign remittances by reinterpretation is not going to be available for amending IHT and gift tax thresholds and rates. These will have to be amended by Act of Parliament. I am sure change is coming to gift tax but I guess it will again be in tandem with IHT amendments, not related to this reinterpretation by the RD DG which may not survive anyway, since it is only an admin order to staff by a civil servant and neither a Royal Decree nor an Act of Parliament.

Who knows but remember he was into some pretty murky stuff that led to his sacking from the police under the Prayut govt. Rumour had it that he upset someone very important and Pravit was only just able to save him from a lengthy prison term. As head of Immigration in the Prayut govt he flew around the country involving himself in many matters, particularly big cash generating illegal businesses including gambling dens, that had absolutely nothing to do with Immigration. Rumour also had it that his rapid promotion in the force was due to Pravit's influence and that he was a bagman for that gentleman. Another rumour had it that when he rolled up the corrupt police in the overweight trucks racket who were also involved in the killing of a senior cop by a kamnan he also upset the current police chief who was reportedly close to the murdered police officer. These rumours may or may not be true but there may be many more stories and allegations out there about him too. When he appeared in front of the TV cameras in his boxers it was an a kind of estate of houses that he owns and rents out. I think he uses the classic wealthy wife cop out to explain otherwise unexplained personal wealth but anyway he lacks the image of an honest cop living in a modest wooden house and only in it for the police awards. So anything could be true or not.

Correct. They said he had arthritis in the spine before he came back. I also it and in the neck too. I would guess that a large percentage of Thais of his age also have it but they just can't afford treatment. So they just grin and bear it. What a total shamster!

I would keep copies air tickets, evidence of arriving in the other country - entry stamp, hotel bill etc. The RD should theoretically be able to verify departure and entry dates from Immigration but that would involve the dreaded interaction between government departments.

Can you cite any reference to support this view or is it just your assumption? The RD case กค 0702/530 of 1 February 2024 doesn't mention that whether or not the foreign partner's overseas funds had been subject to foreign tax was a criterion for determining whether the remittances were assessable for Thai tax or not. If it were the case, they could have said under the previous interpretation that it would have been necessary to prove that the amount remitted was not from income arising in the same tax year. At the American Chamber seminar I attended at the end of last year the tax advisors from Mazars and KPMG were both of the opinion that gifts remitted from overseas to spouses in Thailand would be exempt without any further conditions. If it is necessary to prove that the overseas funds were from income already taxed overseas, why would they have recommended this? There would be no advantage in making the gift, if it were subject to the same rules as remitting the money to yourself with the added disadvantage that, if is more than 20 million in a tax year, it would be subject to a further 5% tax on top of 35% income tax. case กค 0702/530 just suggests that, if the couple had been legally married, the overseas remittances could have been omitted from assessable income in the Thai woman's tax return without further ado.

Sorry. It was an Act of Parliament amending the RC. Here is google translate. Gift Tax Case RD KK0702-530 11 Feb 2023.docx Revenue Code Amendment Act (No. 40) B.E. 2015 1. In the case of giving movable property (1) Person liable to pay taxes: (a) a natural person who receives money from support or from a gift from parents, descendants or spouse (b) a natural person who receives money from patronage out of duty of morality; or from giving by affection during ceremonies or on occasions of customs and traditions From another person who is not parents, descendants, or partners Married (2) Property subject to tax: All types of movable property that can be calculated in terms of money (3) Income that is exempt: · Income received from support or from gifts from parents, descendants, or married spouses, only income that does not exceed 20 million baht throughout that tax year. · Income received from patronage as a duty of moral conduct or from gifts given in ceremonies, or according to customary occasions, from persons who are not parents, descendants, or spouses, only money received in an amount not exceeding 10 million baht throughout that tax year. · Income received which the giver expresses or is seen to intend to use for the benefit of the business, religion, educational affairs, or public interest affairs According to the criteria and conditions specified in the ministerial regulations. (4) Tax rate: The rate is 5 percent of the value of the property received in excess of 20 million baht or 10 million baht. I attach the case study from 11 Feb 2023 in google translate and in the original.