Lorry

That belongs in the thread for jokes

Every time I see googling called "research" I want to vomit

Where does it say foreign property should be taxed differently?

I didn't post anything here. ???

Your liberal usage of the word socialism shows you have no idea what socialism really is about. But we don't want to discuss this here. It's ok to parachute into Thailand when 65, complain that the infrastructure - paid by Thais - is not up to European standards but refusing to pay tax here? I know it's not you (at least not on this forum) but many people I know are like this. I don't pay a lot of tax here - and don't want to - , but I don't expect a lot from the Thai government, either.

All correct. And of course, any law can be retroactive. Happens all of the time. Example: statute of limitations for all kinds of sexual offences in many Western countries.

Palm oil planting is the reason for "the haze" (doesn't it sound cuter than "smog") in Singapore and Malaysia right now, as every year. They blame Indonesia. Somehow they forget to mention that the companies burning down Indonesia are often Singapore-owned. Right, that's when the smog we have now started. Thailand didn't become a sugar producer overnight, it took a couple of years after the coup 2014. The smog now is a "haze" of PM 2.5, unlike the bigger particles of the brown smoke of the 90s. PM 2.5 are so small they enter your lungs. They are only filtered out by a N95 mask, a surgical mask, like in the 90s, isn't enough. You probably confuse AQI and PM 2.5 Or your meter isn't that good Do you really believe, when the window is open, the air inside is better than outside? As said by others, it does make a big difference. Measurable and noticeable, only very indolent people wouldn't feel the difference. On a bad day, one can view, smell and taste the smog, feel it in the eyes, the nose and the throat, and the skin is all sticky, not from sweat. Sleep in an air-purified room and then go out!

Please quote the law that makes it illegal.

Thank you for taking the effort to write such an elaborate answer. Unfortunately, as you can see from the immediate answer, the posters who should read and understand it don't care - they just don't want to pay tax, use the Thai infrastructure and complain that it's not as good as in their home country. Pay 7% VAT? That's laughable. In a typical Western European country, income tax plus social security is more than 50%, and VAT 10-20%

The English version of the RD website has an English translation of the Revenue Code.

The English fonts are small but ok. The microscopic Thai fonts - I have never been able to read them. I don't want to increase font size on my device, that would increase fonts in every app. Only Google maps Thai fonts are unreadable. Any solution?

The black smoke from buses was very visible, and on a main street like Sukhumvit, especially on a motobike, you were breathing smoke - like in a bar. What we have now is very different. It's everywhere, on the river as on the high floors. And it's not only in Bangkok, it's the whole country, except (in the winter) the deep south. CM and the whole north are the worst. (And yes, i was watching, too, when they were building the Skytrain)

I thought Bobae - the bigger part of it - had moved to somewhere near Laksi or Rangsit?

Thanks a lot for bringing Snake oil to my attention. It "protects the hair from the air" - exactly what i needed. I feel already refurbished and revandalized.

You are right. But if the government just does it, what am I going to do about it? Call the police? Actually, there are legal justifications: they might say a treaty is not automatically local law, it has to be "transposed" to become local law. EU regulations often work like this.

I can imagine it. Foreigners living here are now a sizable part of the population. They generally have more money than most Thais (and they don't vote, easy prey.) The tax advisor whose youtube video was posted in the main thread reckons with no more than several thousand dollars tax per person. If one calculates the tax for 65000 B/month one arrives at similar figures. So this might result in a billion or two USD of additional taxes. Not that much, but better than nothing. BTW the timing of the Elite price rise has been mentioned by many posters. It may have been coincidence, though

Sorry, it just isn't so. My country does have a DTA with Thailand (and many other countries). About 15 years ago, our RD decided to override the DTAs and tax income that, according to the DTAs, only the other state had the right to tax. They just did it.

It's exactly the opposite: a foreign treaty is not automatically local law, and sometimes is ignored by local law. "Treaty override" is not so unusual when it comes to DTAs. But it is usually done by more powerful countries, like US or UK. Thailand has said they will follow the DTAs and I fully expect that.

Funny, I just today explained the same to a friend. It wasn't my idea, someone else had mentioned it on AN. But does Somchai the RD inspector understand all this?

After diligently studying maestro's pdf an's Section 48 of the revenue code, I think the answer to your first question is clearly "only if we bring it into Thailand" What worries me a bit is that maestro sees it differently - so how do we know how Somchai the RD inspector sees it?

That's how the rich in the US live tax free. The IRS accepts these shenanigans. I don't know whether the RD accepts this, too. A Thai tax adviser should know.

Yes. It came later, but it was worse February. Extend to weeks before (it can start at Christmas) and after (it can last until after Songkhran) The smog is a fairly recent development. It didn't exist in this form 10 years ago. After the rice scheme of the terribly corrupt regime of Yingluck the squeaky clean new government abolished it and instead of rice they subsidized sugar cane. Within a few years, from a very low base, Thailand has become a major sugar producer. Sugar is put into beer, into bread, whatever. Sugar cane is harvested by burning the fields. That's why a place like Khon Kaen, a city not that big, surrounded by sugar cane plantations, has bad pollution every dry season. If a whole country burns, don't expect the capital to have clean air. Of course there are other factors: burning of the forests by big agrobusinesses all over South East Asia to grow corn as chicken feed for China is the second important factor. Traffic, industry, construction sites are all blamed by the people who want to divert attention from the real culprits.

We will probably know in 2026.

No guarantee that state pensions are tax free. It depends on the DTA and it depends whether the relevant people in the RD actually know what's written in the DTA. I know from another DTA (not UK) that the RD assumed state pensions were taxable here. They admitted they were wrong when a foreign tax adviser personally showed them the relevant sentences in the DTA. It was not Somchai the RD inspector BTW.

You are right about the 60000, retiree said that a couple of posts before yours (and he mentioned that for employees it's 120000). What got me exasperated is when people say "assessable = taxable". You haven't understood the taxonomy of the Thai PIT. From your screenshot: "Assessable income means income that is taxable under this chapter" - the last 3 words are the important ones. The logic of Thai PIT goes like this: Assessable income is not any income, but only certain kinds of income specifically listed in the law. Other kinds of income, that are not in this list, cannot be assessed for PIT. Taxable income is assessable income minus allowances and deductions. The taxable income is then multiplied with the tax rate, and you get the payable tax. For many purposes the difference doesn't matter. Where it matters, for example, is the calculation of those 60000 you mentioned. 60000 is assessable income, see your screenshot. 60000 is NOT taxable income. If your assessable income from the income sources listed in the tax code is 10m, but you (think you) have deductions of 9,950,000, your taxable income is 50,000 and you don't have to pay any tax. But you have to file a tax return. The same applies for tax credits based on a DTA. (it may be different if the DTA says something is not taxable in Thailand but in the other country - I am not sure about this) BUT in practice, see Mikes post (5 posts up from here). How this plays out when the amounts are not negligible remains to be seen.