Mike Teavee

Technically you're potentially liable for tax on any income arising whilst you're Thai Tax Resident so somebody earning £50,000 pa remitting nothing for 4 years then £250,000 in year 5 whilst they were not Tax Resident would (technically) be liable for Tax on the income that accrued during the 4 years they were Tax Resident (I.e. £200,000) Practically you wouldn't be filing a return for the year that you were non-resident so I can't see how it could be taxed.

Technically it's to be non-tax resident in the year the gain was made, but for something big like the CGT on the sale of a house I would do both (realise & remit) in a year I was non-tax resident.

That assumes you're only leaving the country because of the Visa and not leaving on holiday or visiting family. I visit my family in the UK once per year so that takes care of the annual "Border hop" & take the GF to visit a different country at least once per year which takes care of the extensions. So total cost of the Visa over 5 years is 10,000B (Or whatever the equivalent is in the country where you apply). Have to ask, what's the point of getting a Multi Re-Entry permit if you're not going to be leaving Thailand at least 2 times pa.

I discount the opportunity costs on the 800K as I keep much more than that in Thailand anyway as a "Whoops" fund but completely agree with everything else you said. My one concern about switching from a Non-IMM O is if they did change the rules (E.g. raise the money in the bank requirement) I wouldn't be grandfathered in but given their recent track record when they changed the money in the bank requirements (800K for 5 months & 400K for 7 months) & health insurance for Non-IMM OA holders where they didn't grandfather people in I'm not sure it's worth worrying about.

Agents are more like 12,500, well mine is though I pay 8,000 as I keep the 800K in the Bank, but add on 4K for a multi re-entry permit so one year costs me more than this 5 year Visa. OK I could do it for 5,700B (1,900 extension + 3,800 Multi Re-Entry permit) but that's still a lot more than 2,000B pa & I get 5 years not worrying about extensions (Covid years aside I travel outside of Thailand at least once every 6 months). I extended my Non-IMM O "Retirement" last week so am good till 26th September 2025 (1 advantage of using an Agent is they can do your extensions up to 3 months early, comes in handy when you have travel plans) or I would seriously consider switching to this - Am hoping they'll give us Non-IMM O holders a better deal (5 years would be nice) when/if they make any tweaks to it.

Problem is, who's more likely to leave? The guy who's remitting 500K pa (Who probably wont have any tax to pay anyway) or the guy remitting 5Million pa? NB. I'm not saying the guy remitting 500K is a lowlife or the guy remitting 5Million pa isn't but on a purely monetary basis if you have more money not only do you more options available to you for living elsewhere, it's more beneficial (tax wise) for you to do so,

Unfortunately Capital Gains on the sale of stock will be based on original costs & Thailand would tax the whole gain if you remitted the money, the only way you could have locked in the value as at 31/12/2023 would have been to have sold them. E.g. Lets say I bought 1000 shares in 2020 at £1 per share & sold them tomorrow for £2 per share, I would be taxed on the whole £1,000 gain not what they were worth on 31/12/2023. I do wonder what the position would be if I used the money to buy new shares (In the UK it would have to be different stock) & then sold these, my Capital gains on the 2nd sale is likely to be a loss but would the original gain be counted even though I didn't remit it to Thailand.

Any gains made on the sale of your house would be classed as "Capital Gains" and so taxable if you remit it to Thailand. The fact that you bought it out of already taxed income doesn't come into it as that went to cover the Cost of the house not the gain (Same with any stocks & shares you own).

You will become Tax Resident when you spend 180 days in any one calendar year so if you're saying that you will only spend 175 days in Thailand this year you won't be Tax resident, if you continue to stay in Thailand you will become Tax Resident 29th Jun 2025.

It's 180 days in any one calendar year so if you spend Jan-March 2025 in Thailand (90 days), leave & come back Oct-Dec 2025 (92 Days) you're tax resident. On the flipside if you spend August 2024-June 2025 in Thailand, leave & don't return until 1st Jan 2026 you won't have spent 180 days in either year so won't be tax resident in either year.

Absolute BS, nobody has ever met a nice South African... PS Just joking, worked in JBurg & met many very nice South Africans, some of the nicest guys I've ever worked with.

You will be given a new 12 month permission to stay which starts from day of entry & would cover the previous 9 months you had + an extra 3 months so you won’t lose anytime in Thailand.

You can extend for 1 year at a time without leaving Thailand the, cost is the same 1,900 THB as other extensions & TE can help you to do it (no need to have money in the bank or regular income coming in so very easy to do yourself). You don’t need to get a re-entry permit with your extension as if you leave & return you’ll be given a new 1 year permission to stay.per the original Visa. Edit: The only time you might want to get a re-entry permit is if the original Visa has expired & you want to protect your final entry permission to stay.

The Elite visa is a multi-entry Visa so you don't need a re-entry permit to re-enter whilst it's still valid (Same is true of the LTR & 1 year Non-IMM OA visa and apparently the new DTV visa). I started on a 1 year Non-IMM O "Retirement" & visited Thailand at least 10 times (working in SG I used to pop over for a long weekend at least once per month) over the course of the year without needing a re-entry permit until I came in just before it was expiring & I needed to get a re-entry permit to protect my permission to stay so I could return to get an extension (With Multi Re-Entry permit as the Visa was no longer valid).

I'm having an internal debate with myself about whether I should also sell my UK house in 2026 when I'm going to be non-tax resident anyway. Am sure you're already aware but the Capital Gains on your property will be calculated using the property's value in April 2015 so you may find your CGT bill is not as bad as you were maybe thinking.

When I was working in SG on an EP (Employment Pass, initially 2 years & then on 3 years extensions) they would only grant things like the MTV to Citizens & foreigners who had PR status so I guess it will be the same with the DTV.

As I keep saying, in the case of Elite Visas you are only given a Visa in your passport up to the expiry date of your passport however your approval letter gives you the rights to (at least) a 5 year Visa so the remaining time will be granted to you when you get your new passport - Seems you consider the approval letter as the "Visa" whereas I consider what ends up in your passport as the "Visa". End of the day none of this matters as one way or another you'll get a visa that's valid for 5 years, unlike when you're doing annual extensions where you would lose time if you did your extension when there was <12 months on your passport.

I don't know, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190332/ is one of my all time favourite movies and I think the Chinese dialog / English subtitles somehow made it more authentic.

Nothing to do with permission to stay, I'm referring to the Visa Sticker (or Stamp) that they put in your passport. As already discussed if you were on an Elite Visa & your passport expired in < 5 years you would only get the sticker/stamp up to the date of expiry of your passport & would get a 1 year permission to stay (assuming your passport had more than 12 months left on it). When you get your new passport they will issue you with new sticker/stamp for the remainder of the 5 years. Visas are tied to Passports so I'm guessing that the same will be true of the new DTV visa OR you'll need to carry the letter confirming your Visa & your old passport (which has the number listed on the letter) with you when you travel. I can't imagine you turning up showing an eVisa letter & not having the passport that it's been issued against will get you anything but a 30/60 day Visa Exempt stamp.

Exactly, I did the maths on somebody remitting 1Million THB of UK (already taxed) pension income & the max they would need to pay in Tax is <1,000B. However, spending less than 180 days in Thailand makes sense when you want to remit a large chunk of money, E.g. In 2026 my private pensions start to pay out so I plan on bringing my PCLS (Pensions Commencement Lump Sum) of approx. 12Million Baht over so I can invest the $250,000 I need to invest to get an LTR visa & the tax on this would be >3Million THB so its a no-brainer for me to spend < 180 days in Thailand that year. Hopefully it's just for the 1 year as if I can get an LTR I can bring money over freely without worrying about Tax. I do hope that Thailand realises it will lose Expat money under this new tax regime, me spending 6 months outside of Thailand will mean they're losing approx. 720,000B that I would be spending in Thailand if I wasn't being forced to stay away.

This is where it's important to differentiate between a Visa that's a Sticker/Stamp in your passport & an "eVisa" that may be your Visa or may get you the Sticker/Stamp in your passport. The former are only ever valid until your passport expires however the letter of approval for your Visa will get you a new Sticker/Stamp that's valid until the end of the "Visa".

Suggest you go back 1 page & read the discussion on this point. In a nutshell you will be given a 5 year eVisa, it's unknown at this time whether they will put a sticker/stamp in your passport up to the date of expiry (They certainly won't put a stamp later than this) & then you'll get the remainder added to your new passport OR whether you'll need to carry the 5 year eVisa with you on every entry (& presumably your old passport as that's the passport the eVisa is tied to).

Ouch, but didn’t you (or somebody else) post that a German can choose to be taxed in Thailand instead of Germany on their pension which sounds like a good deal. UK Pensions are taxed in the UK, no choice.

In the UK you can still use your £12,570 Personal Allowance although in some cases it might be better for you to forgo this as it can reduce your overall tax bill (I don't understand it enough to get into it & most people, including myself, still use their UK personal allowance). But you cannot use things like your annual £20,000 ISA allowance. You can keep anything that you have in an ISA & still benefit from no tax on interest but you cannot add anything more to it whilst being non-UK Tax resident. UK CGT for Expats is limited to Property & even then, if you're selling your primary property then there is no CGT to pay (E.g. for my 1st 3 years of being non-UK resident for Tax because I was working overseas & kept my house empty the UK still considered it my Primary property, it was only when I started to rent it out that it stopped being my "Primary Property" & so I have to pay CGT when it comes to selling it).

Not sure why you think LTR Visa is useless given it costs 50K for 10 years and you get an exemption from paying tax on any money you bring into Thailand so could pay for itself in year 1. But I do believe that anybody who's been on a Non-IMM O for a reasonable period of time (Let's say 5 years) should be given a 5 year extension instead of messing around every year (Did mine today, thank <deleted> that's done with for another year)