Dogmatix

The RD has to coordinate with the police to come up with rules linking visas to tax returns. This takes some time but it will probably happen eventually as it is a no brainer for them. It has been in place for years for NON-O visas linked to work permits. So it should not be hard. There is already existing but dormant regulation requiring tax clearance certificates for foreigners to leave the country. The police just have to issue an internal order to enforce this once again, if they feel like it. We used to have to send a messenger to the RD to get this certificate to show that all tax was paid up-to-date.

The big problem with DTAs in all of this is that what is written in them is just a bare bones guideline for how countries tax overseas income of residents. European countries have had global taxation and applied their DTAs to it for many years in respect of the millions of European expats living in other European countries. Generally the DTAs say that most types of income may be taxed in either the country of the taxpayer's residence or in the country where the income arises. The European tax authorities are staffed by grown ups and have worked out practical gentlemen's agreements over the years on how to apply these treaties. Mostly they have applied the principle that, if income has been subjected to tax in the country it arose, the country of taxpayer residence will not attempt to tax it again and collect the difference, if their rate is higher. This principle is often still respected in cases where the income was subject to tax in the country it arose but not taxed. On the basis of swings and round abouts these tax authorities save a lot of trouble for themselves and taxpayers and probably don't lose any revenue. The Thai RD, on the other hand, is not staffed by grown ups who have any experience of the practical application of DTAs. What little they have said about how they plan to apply just the remittance tax has been largely incoherent and contradictory but one point comes through clearly. That is that they plan to collect every last satang they can based on the exact letter of the DTAs. So that in all cases where the treaties say they may tax income income, they will, even if the income is already subject to tax in its country of origin. This will create huge problems for taxpayers and for the generally ignorant, poorly trained and monoglot RD staff in order to collect very little incremental tax. If they were sensible they would just focus on overseas income that is not subject to tax and there is plenty of it, including capital gains on shares traded in offshore markets which are generally not subject to tax for non-residents.

If they legislate to collect global tax, it is as sure as God made little green apples that will link tax compliance with visa renewal within a year or two of the change. If they stick with the recently introduced remittance tax, it is also very likely. Expats should plan accordingly.

That's why they want the windfall of adding a couple of hundred thousand foreigners to the payroll. Could add 2% more taxpayers.

I wonder what happens to Brits who fraudulently claim the index linked UK state pension and winter fuel allowance (if that survives under Stammer), using a correspondence address in the UK while living in the Thai sunshine. Will they claim tax credits from HMRC to show the RD?

The US air bases in Thailand were needed for the carpet bombing of Indochina but the US has no current need for anything in Thailand. Fake news.

Many mongers may move to meet younger women in the Philippines to avoid all this hassle and expense.

One thing I think they will not touch to protect wealthy politician with money from corruption offshore like one particularly famous and currently powerful family is offshore companies. In the UK any offshore company with UK resident directors or have over a certain percentage of UK resident shareholders or that uses a UK address or holds meetings there is considered a UK company and liable to UK corporation tax. Thailand considers offshore companies to be Thai, only if they appear to be conducting business from Thailand. It doesn't matter if all the shareholders and directors are Thai residents. So wealthy Thais can own their offshore assets through offshore companies and pay not tax on interest, dividends and capital gains in the company The can also remit money to Thailand as corporate loans. The only taxable event would be if a Thai resident shareholder receives a dividend or a salary from the company. If they do eventually follow the UK and other farang countries in this, the super wealthy will still be able to add overseas nominees and other layers of concealment.

That's right in the case of US SS pensions and pensions from US government, state or local government employment because the US has the sole right to tax this income in the DTA. I am know about 401K. If no specifically exempted in the DTA, it would be taxable in Thailand. Unfortunately very few other farang countries negotiated to exempt state pensions in their DTAs like the US did. You will find that nearly all exempt only pensions from government employment. However, it is arguable whether foreign state pensions are taxable because the wording in Section 40 covering pensions specifies only pensions from employment. It doesn't specify pensions that are not from employment. Perhaps they will argue that the UK state pension is indirectly from employment because yhou don't get it, if you haven't worked. But other pensions like the Australian Superannuation cannot be regarded as pension from employment because it is now payable to slackers who have never worked a day in their lives. I wonder, if they will amend the wording to cover all foreign pensions but I doubt it as they are very lazy thinkers and probably haven't got round to this year.

Would be nice, if they mentioned what year they hope this will take effect and whether the Ung Ing government supports it, since it has to go through parliament. Last year's gift was announced in September and took effect from 1 Jan but that was just the RD chief making a short announcement that the relevant clause in the RD no longer meant what it clearly said. This time it has to go to the Council of State for vetting and pass 3 readings in parliament, unless the government claims it is an emergency, in which case it can be enacted through a Royal Decree, bypassing parliament. Since it is a fairly radical change, my guess is that it would go through parliament but you never know in this country.

That is true. Foreign residents, including temporary residents, in Western countries usually get those benefits, except in the US which has no universal healthcare for its own citizens (spends the money on export of war, death and destruction instead). In the UK the only thing most foreigners living there, whether on settlement visas or not, don't get if the vote which, considering the quality of politicians doesn't matter much. Some even do get the vote, including the Irish and citizens of Commonwealth countries and the latter don't reciprocate. Labour likes this because most of the foreigners vote for them.

Something lost in translation. They meant tax residents, i.e. those spending at least 180 days or partial days in the Kingdom in a calendar/tax year. The Revenue Code is nationality neutral. Nothing in it distinguishes Thai citizens or PRs from anyone else.

If your tax rate on your global income is higher in Thailand, you will have to pay on the difference in Thailand. If you can't present evidence of tax credits in a form acceptable to the RD or the difference in tax years means it is not available yet, you will have to pay Thai tax on the entire amount and claim tax credits from the IRS. It is not as simple as it appears on the face of it.

So why not go back to requiring visas for Thais to save them the time and expense of flying over there, only to be denied entry.

The quote of the RD chief didn't say whether she thought the government agreed with her idea of global tax, which involves legislation, or what year she hoped to introduce it. She said the amendment was being drafted but amending Section 41 to cover global income would only take about 5 minutes. Probably a lot of politicians have corruption money salted away in offshore accounts and might not like the idea. Theoretically they would get rid of last year's reinterpretation that made remittances taxable, if the income was earned prior to 2024, as the two systems are contradictory. They can't tax income earned abroad and then tax it again on remittance. But cancelling the remittance tax complete would give a free pass to income earned abroad from 1 Jan 2024 till whenever the start date for global tax might be. They might include a transitory provision to tax that income on remittance. It still leaves a gaping loophole for wealthy Thais like Thaksin who can use family offices to manage their wealth offshore or at least an offshore corporate structure. Any income earned in the corporate would only taxable in Thailand, if the Thai resident beneficiary took a dividend from the company. Overwise as income and capital gains just accumulate in the offshore company. This is obviously grossly unfair to less wealthy Thai residents who can't afford oversas corporate structures but I can't see people like Thaksin wanting to have the corporate veil lifted to tax the Thai corporate owners. They can also set up offshore loans if they want to transfer cash to Thailand tax free instead of taking Thai taxable dividends.

They can force Lazada and Shopee to add VAT to stuff ordered from their Thai websites but shipped from China but I don't see how they can do that to overseas vendors, such as Aliexpress and Temu. They said somewhere they will have to register a presence in Thailand too but there again, I don't see how to force that. Thailand doesn't have extraterritorial jurisdiction in China. All it could do to enforce this, if foreign vendors don't comply, is to ask the foreign government to pass a law obliging firms to register for VAT in Thailand, if they export there. They still have the ability to tax the goods when they arrive in Thailand but that would involve opening everything to check whether VAT charged or not.

This case is obviously past now but here is a case of a school suing a father for withholding fees from an international school. https://tismonitor.com/general-news/father-sued-by-international-school-after-protesting-fee-hike I have been involved in a number of lawsuits in Thailand, usually to do with land, not schools. But what seems common to all civil cases is that the judges always order the parties to attempt mediation in the court house to avoid the case going to trial, just as in the article. So if a teacher were sued for breach of contract, I imagine the same thing would happen and that the teacher could offer to split the difference on the amount demanded by the school.

Keep the lawsuits coming. There will be one about Thaksin exercise power over PT as a non-member. There should be one about appointing totally unqualified people as ministers to be nominees of people who failed to pass the ethical screening, e.g. Thammanart's brother and Chada's daughter. If is would have been an offence to appoint those unethical characters, surely it is also an offence to let they assign nominees, so they are still actually exercising power as ministers.

Yes ceasing to exist as a legal entity but not wiping its people off the map. Rather, they want to incorporate Jews in a Palestinian state with the same rights as Muslims and Christians which was exactly what the British government planned for Israel which was not an unreasonable concept, given that Jews were in the minority. That didn't happen because Jewish terror gangs like the Irgun, Stern gang, Lehi gang and Haganah rampaged Palestine massacring and raping Arabs and forcing them from their homes. You can read about this in the archives opened by the Israeli government in 1990s but suddenly snapped shut again. It is a state founded on terrorism. So it is not surprising that the indigenous people it displaced will fight back using exactly the same tactics Israelis used to get their land from them and form their state. The Israelis claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. So why don't they make that a reality by annexing the West Bank and make it a part of Israel, abolishing the apartheid system with Muslims and Christians having equal rights with Jews? Then there will be no need for any more war.

Israel is now displaying its own genocidal tendencies following Hamas's deplorable war crimes on Oct 7. Two wrongs don't make a right. I think Hamas and Hezbollah want a unified state that gives equal rights to Jews, Muslims, Christians, Zorastrians, agnostics, atheists, rather than an ethnocentric state. That is actually what Britain also had in mind for a post-independence Palestinian state from the late 30s. But the reign of terror from the Jewish terrorist gangs made the British cut and run and abandon the country to an orgy of violence resulting in the creation of Israel and nothing for the Arabs. The British did the same thing in India, leaving Hindus and Muslims to massacre each other forced millions from their homes.

They need to investigate the luxury services provided to an inmate with a square face in Bangkok

Absolutely. The drive to Korat is a stressful 4 hours or so on a very dangerous road with regular fatal accidents.

That's right. There were before and after aerial photos of the land he acquired for a housing development by the sea. I seem to recall. Looked pretty obvious that he had encroached on national forest reserve land. Getting his acquittal and silencing the land encroachment charges must have cost him a pretty penny. Now only the cost of the visa to go. Actually I think the visa revocation is the only thing that was unfair, as they didn't wait for his court case. But Anutin saw a big grandstanding opportunity to capitalise on racist anti farang sentiment. He and the Swiss guy and Thai wife are all disgusting.

50 years but subject to reduction under Royal Pardons.

This was the police chief who was trading billions in private placements on the SET while he was police chief. Said it was just a sideline and that he was a natural stock picker. Others alleged threatening people showed up at companies and pressured them to do private placement and allocated free shares priced below market. They were all small cap stocks with moribund businesses and low liquidity and easy to manipulate. Some good news about the company was always announced just before the PPs to make share prices spike up on higher volume before collapsing. In the parlance known as a pump and dump.