Karma80

I for one hope that the PM actually takes professional advice and realises the implications for the country of a CBDC rollout beyond the obvious of just bribing people with 10,000 THB and the decade long debt that will be the legacy. The people of Thailand should be rightly concerned. The CBDC "digital wallet" is programmed to only let you spend it in a certain way and gives the Thai Central Bank absolute insight into where money gets spent, imbed programable controls, and delete, freeze or otherwise implement social controls without legal process. Feeling dystopian enough for anyone, yet? It's dystopian enough for many countries to have walked back their interest. Of course, if you were a quasi defacto dictatorship or kleptocracy, it would appeal a lot....

A trip to Central in Phuket today and all the entrances have a guard and walk through metal detector. I mean, I don't mind that at all, but I have never feared for gun violence in Thailand.

Not just to raise funds for the payment. The 10,000 THB to each citizen is a CBDC (Central bank digital currency) and will make Thailand one of the first countries in the world to make that legal tender. What better way to get broad acceptance and have people "exploiting a loophole" (aka just following the law for 40 years) pay for it. I think as expats, the concern would be how rapidly the integration of CBDC and banking segments, combined with generally corrupt and/or incompetent governmental levels will move and how it ends up. I personally think the taxation system will become more hostile once it has teeth and data. This instruction to the RD is just part of the broad roadmap and we can always guarantee that there are a bunch of people with their noses in the trough with an interest to make it happen.

3 - 4 years? Add in the political nonsense and let's round it to 10. We'll be knee deep in PM turnover at that point.

Moral of the story - don't bribe people with uncosted promises of 10,000 Baht so you can get elected and hand over a bill for the massive debt that will take a decade or more to pay. But in the longer term, the rapid move to mass introduction of the digital Bhat CBDC should be the bigger concern.

My strategy will be to avoid bringing the money into the country from overseas. I have the latitude of a salary taxed in Thailand already, but the bulk of my other income will stay offshore. My rough numbers are that I won't have an additional tax liability in Thailand if I choose to remit it, as the funds are mostly already taxed elsewhere. But there is no way I am throwing myself in the firing line of Thai RD, and jumping through hoops over the first few years of "misunderstandings" and whatever, or risking moving to LTR until that has gone through the wash in the new paradigm. Someone else can be the crash test dummy. I'm sure there will be legal challenges in the tax court and all sorts of other shenanigans to play out yet. Until then, Thailand looses my income and investment. They won't lose any sleep over it, I am smaller than small fish. But I still can't fathom why to introduce this massive uncertainty for the next couple of years.. As a couple of well off Thai friends said, it's OK, we just won't bring the money here or use other ways.

Anyone living in Thailand can tell you that's selectively fabricated. I wonder how the impact of 10,000 THB to every citizen is going to play out on inflation - my bet is more creative accounting.

It does. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/thailand-tax-treaties

Technically, you are remitting it into Thailand so you would need to declare it. In practice, there is no way to enforce this. So, you will now see people just hitting up the ATM for cash from their overseas account, or using a no international fee credit card from an overseas bank. Completely tax legal? Nope.

He could enhance Thailand's reputation by not dressing up like deckchair for a start.

Releasing 560 Billion Bhat of free money into the system. If only we had some sort of recent reference as to how it might impact the economy as a whole when governments throw huge quantities of money about....

Another day, another flip-flop. Still working out how to actually pay for the bribes election promises magicked up from nothing.

I've seen enough people here in Phuket riding bikes after smoking a joint and a few actually just smoking and riding to agree with this. The cops in Chalong at the circle should just drugs test for a week. I imagine the traffic situation would instantly get better.

Thank you for the article. It will be interesting to see how this becomes settled. I wonder if a Royal Decree would be in the interests of the establishment making the said decree ???? I'm not retired as many are here, so i will just keep much of my money offshore and abandon notions of investing in property or otherwise. The government will loose no sleep over that I am sure, and the wealthy will still structure around it with a tweak or two.

I was considering keeping Thailand my home in the long term. But, until the impact of this is actually settled as to how it will be implemented in practice, I will keep my options open and my money offshore.

Maybe they will sue climate change for defamation.

I don't think Europe/N America matters as much as it did to Thailand's tourism much now post covid. Things have changed. Look at the top arrival countries - China, Russia, India, Australia, Malaysia and so on. Many are not paying long haul prices for flights and Thailand remains very affordable.

Elite knows that most people who still work are just using it to structure tax residency in Thailand and pay zero tax from income generated elsewhere. In that respect, the flat fee is likely a lot less than the tax you would otherwise be exposed to over a year or so. As long as Thailand continues to turn a blind eye to that it's very attractive. The other "benefits" are pretty pathetic, I agree.

Probably perfect for the way Thailand is shaping up. More weed shops than 7-11s. The drugs economy is just getting rolling.

I think 90 day visas are a good idea. But at the same time, then should be backed by a system which only allows two in a given year to stop the abuse of people just living here. That would also provide certainty, and wouldn't prevent anyone obtaining another visa at an embassy for multiple entries for genuine reasons. It might open up more reciprocity with other countries and Thai passport holder visa requirements. Bank KYC. Thailand would become an even bigger target for money laundering.

This whole episode is the most poorly put-together Asian drama with a transparent predictable plotline I have seen. I hope we don't have to wait long for the season finale.

Regardless, the world does need to become more sustainable. Hannibal crossed the alps in 218BC and there were plenty of elephants to go around, given the population on earth was approximately 150 million. Now it's 8 billion, with 6.4 billion increase in the last 100 years alone. So, it's certainly not an OK or sustainable situation and that often gets rolled up in the personal greed factory of "ESG" and other fabrications. Somewhere amongst those lies are truths, and therein lies the danger of being too dismissive either way.

The sun will rise tomorrow, and Thailand will still be the land of corruption and under the boot of conservative military influence. Same, same but different PM. One who already broke his word to ascend to the role. Did we ever expect anything less, really?

Low-class Chinese? Have you been to China? I think you underestimate what wealth many Chinese can wield.

Cutting a purely fictional number pulled from your behind and blame something else? Sure, why not. Interesting stats for July in Phuket. Which speaks more to a reliance, as always on Chinese tourism, which has not materialised to the numbers they dream of. Why ? Because chat on social media in China is that tourism isn't safe in Thailand because of the incidents of kidnapping and human trafficking, and sure there is a noise about policital instability. But more than that - Thailand isn't the only country which is trying to attract tourists and that competition is fierce. Japan is seeing a massive upsurge, for example. What's left for Thailand is skewed to the bottom end of tourist spending and that's impacted by the economic downturn.