chiang mai

Every foreign currency transaction, be it cash or credit, goes through the central bank of the countries whose currencies are involved in the transaction. That means BOT and the US Fed, for example, see every transaction involving USD/THB. It has to be that way in order for countries to manage their respective currency. That is NOT to say that those central banks see the transactions at the detail level, nor do they see them in real time. But to suggest that the US cannot monitor a US credit card usage overseas is completely wrong.

There have been several reports over many months of home country tax advisors, especially in Oz, giving an incorrect interpretation of basic rules that were otherwise agreed and understood .

The price in Baht is going down because the USD is weakening.

The calculation is based on quarters where the first quarter is when 99% of filings take place. The final quarter is inconsequential and can be based on the previous year ratio of final quarter to the first three. Did you never do modelling of such scenarios' where misaligned periods are normalised?

You don't understand the tax rules, suggest you read this:

Gold is priced in USD. https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/gold-price

What is written in that article is plain and simply incorrect/incomplete. The purpose of a DTA is to determine which country has primary taxation rights over tax residents income. If, using the example above, the income is taxed in the UK but the person is resident in Thailand, that is likely to result in Thailand taxing that income and the UK issuing a tax credit to offset the Thai tax. The net effect is that the income was not taxed twice but responsibility for collecting the tax was changed from the UK to Thailand.

It is not a 9/12 coefficient, it is the full twelve months which involves data from 9 months of one year and three months of a second year, in order to align the tax year data with the fiscal year parameters. That is a fairly normal routine practise when mapping overlapping periods. The PIT filing period is 1 January through 8 April, by 30 September there are less than 1% of returns outstanding hence taking data for the final three months of the year, from the preceding year, has almost no impact.

The typical 30 baht scheme, outside of the major urban centers, involves junior (sometimes student) or local doctors with little experience, they are the first line of medical defense in many cases, especially in rural areas. Further up the hospital ladder and with the passage of time, unresolved cases end up with more experienced and better qualified doctors in District or Regional hospitals where medical progress is often made but most Westerners wont be willing to wait that long. The private hospital short cuts all of that by offering a more probable diagnosis, with better qualified doctors, right here and now, but at a cost. I've had first hand experience of the above on several occasion's, one where Dengue Fever was diagnosed as the flu and the patient given vitamin B shots for three days straight, On day 4 the patient was taken to a private hospital, diagnosed correctly and put on a drip within hours. In a second case, this year, the District Hospital took seven hours to diagnose my wife as having the flu and the student doctor prescribed the usual symptom relievers. In parallel with that, I was diagnosed with covid in 45 minutes at the university hospital yet the student doctor treating my wife refused to accept she also had covid, even though we'd both been together in the same car for the previous fourteen hours! I accept that the end result can be very similar in both 30 baht and private hospitals but the path to get to the end and the time it takes, varies massively.

Anyone who uses a bar girl as their point of reference for Thai tax, cannot be credible.

One last time, from the article, which reports on fiscal year totals, NOT the tax year: "In fiscal 2023, which ended on Sept 30, 2023, the Revenue Department collected a total of 2.21 trillion baht in taxes, exceeding the target by 9% and surpassing the previous year's figure by 2.1%. In terms of major tax categories, corporate income tax revenue amounted to 767 billion baht, 13.8% above the target and 5.3% higher than the previous year. Value-added tax revenue totalled 913 billion baht, 5.1% above the target, but 1.8% lower than the previous year. Personal income tax revenue tallied 395 billion baht, 10.9% above the target and 7.5% higher than the previous year, while petroleum income tax revenue was 48.7 billion baht, 25.1% above the target, but 22.4% lower than the previous year". Please credit and share this article with others using this link: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/2799906/tax-refunds-delayed-by-surge-in-fake-submissions. View our policies at http://goo.gl/9HgTd and http://goo.gl/ou6Ip. © Bangkok Post PCL. All rights reserved.

And it must be agreed in Parliament and by the government, that it will be is not a given.

I'm including a link to google calendar so you can download it to figure out the dates involved in all of this. Hint: September 2023 comes before October 2023. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.calendar&hl=en&pli=1

Those changes and the announcements didn't begin until September 2023, the same month the announcement was made. Just accept that the TRD is actively trying to do their job and increase the size of the tax net and are not just sitting back doing nothing and that Thai's are paying more tax as a result.......unless you want to play the victim of course!

And how exactly does it manage to do that? To add: fiscal year 2023 ended September 2023, long before the TRD started making announcements about the new tax rule.

Nobody suggested you would be, I was responding to a specific issue concerning the number of Thai's paying tax.

Not too difficult to comprehend if you read it slowly and think! This is social network forum, not an English grammar class.

Go back to school! 1 person x 12k month = 144k per year x 2 people = 288k baht per year. First 150k is zero rated for tax so tax free deductions = 60 x 2 adults + 1 x 30k child or 150k Total tax free amount = 150 + 150 or 300k. The couple in my example aree 12k under the threshold for paying tax.

Who in their right mind picks fruit from the top of the tree first!

And you know very well, because you've been told at least a dozen times, that nobody will know until the new forms are released in November, what else might be required and that until then, you need to be patient, (clearly an impossible task)!

You don't need to be a rocket science to understand that TRD accepts they have a tax collection problem, that's why they amended the rules once already and that's why they would like to amend them a second time, to increase the size of the tax net. My "guess work" that TRD is trying to improve future tax collection and enforcement is based on fact, the BP article tells us that tax collection is improving, "Personal income tax revenue tallied 395 billion baht, 10.9% above the target and 7.5% higher than the previous year". What is factual (from the BP article) is that over 30% of the workforce files a tax return, that is not a very small percentage! What is also factual is that the low average annual wage means a couple earning 24k Baht a month don't have to pay tax. It also means people working as self employed can often earn double that amount and still not pay tax, legally. None of those things have to do with the lack of enforcement of TRD, they are everything to do with the socio-economics of the country. Those things said, I accept that the grey or informal economy is equal to half the value of GDP and that almost 50% of the work force is engaged in it. But as we can see by the recent 10% increase in the tax take, TRD is doing something about it and that trend is continuing, made more possible by electronic banking data collection. So no, it is not just a "very small percentage" who pay tax and no, the low collection rate is not solely "a result of the lack of enforcement". When Thailand was a purely cash economy, it was nigh on impossible to eradicate tax evasion. Now that every transaction is increasingly captured electronically, the task becomes more manageable, which is why rates are improving. https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/2799906/tax-refunds-delayed-by-surge-in-fake-submissions.

Yes, plus that. So that means both Somachai and his wife can work and earn 24k a month and they don't have to file tax returns (well they should, but no tax would be due).

That's tax evasion, good luck with that! CRS stands for Common Reporting Standards, it's an agreement entered into by a number of countries, including Thailand, to share personal financial data between governments. Google it for more info.

Yes of course, they are the primary target of the new legislation

The onus is on you to file accurately, as it is in any country. If you don't and they want you to prove what you've said to reasonable levels of satisfaction, you're not going anywhere until you do.