K2938

55 minutes ago, lapamita said:

just a silly question , it maybe apply to other worldtraveler

Living in thailand under visa excempt for 4 month a year aprox , on a temporary residence in other country aprox 7 month ( its called temporary with no taxt obligation but asking at application for the first residence , gave them years ago an pro forma adress bcs no have first residence ) 1month or more in diffrent countrys.

 

at my Bank ACs i was gave them all thaiadress since 20 years ,where the last years some problems slowly comming up

 

from legal i have to pay tax anywhere or not ( income only from stocks dividends and intrest as well little rent) no working since xxx

1) You do not have to pay taxes in Thailand based on this scenario if all your income is non-Thai.  How the situation is in other countries depends on the tax laws of these other countries.

2) Giving your Thai address to your foreign banks also does not change that you are not taxable in Thailand.  With this now for the first time actually being reported to Thailand it might however be that Thailand will at some point of time report back to them that you do not really live in Thailand which might cause you some trouble with your banks.

12 hours ago, TravelerEastWest said:

What about the 5 year followup paperwork?

It is not know yet, but it would appear that at the minimum they will ask again for proof that you held this deposit for at least one year and it might well turn out to be five years, i.e. since the start of your visa.

10 hours ago, Misty said:

I hope you are right. It isn't clear how this will work in practice.  For example, if you bring the income to Thailand and then need to file a Thai tax return to claim the foreign (UAE) tax credit against any Thai tax due, you might find you only get a foreign tax credit of 0%.  So you'd still owe Thai tax.

Moreover, if you are paying yourself a fictitious salary via a UAE company while permanently living in Thailand, then this fictitious salary will most likely be considered to be Thai income anyway, regardless of where it is paid.  People got away with this in the past due to lack of reporting.  But these times are probably over.  So this is unlikely to work for many reasons.

2 minutes ago, TravelerEastWest said:

I bought an insurance policy for my LTR visa which I will probably never use sometimes these things are the cost of getting things done?

Indeed.  But it is a shame that you had to do this.  And the more unnecessary hurdles they erect thereby, the less people will apply for an LTR visa.

38 minutes ago, stat said:

Thanks for your post! As I do not draw a classical pension I cannot use such a letter unfortunately, neither do I have a condo.

What you can do is use some of your funds to buy annuities of the appropriate amount.  This would then meet their criteria.  But as this is probably a really poor investment, you are likely to save money by just forgetting about the LTR visa and buy an Elite visa instead.

On 11/14/2023 at 4:22 PM, stat said:

BOI do equity sales count towards to 80K goal and they said no, only gains count as income.

And they also do not like gains very much if they are significant.  They will then ask to see the gains for many years and given market volatility the gains were probably not constant or at some point of time were even losses and then they will hold this against you.

On 11/14/2023 at 2:40 PM, oldcpu said:

Its a good point - and my assumption is that they want proof of more than just wealth. They also want proof of cash flow.  Its possible to be very wealthy but with cash flow so low (due to the type of investment/wealth that one has) that one has very little money to spend.  So I speculate (and speculate is the 'operative word' ) that proof of one's cash flow is also very important in their criteria.  They want the foreigner to spend money in Thailand, and if a foreigner can't access their wealth easily while at the same time the foreigner has small cash flow, it means that the foreigner will not be spending  very much of their money in Thailand.

 

For the Wealthy Pensioner LTR category, $80K US$ equivalent annual income, that full amount is not necessary if one has $250K US$ equivalent investment in Thailand (such as ownership in a foreign freehold condominium that is worth that amount), in which case $40K US$ equivalent annual income will suffice. 

 

But again, I suspect its not just proof of one's total wealth that they want - they also want proof of one's cash flow .... At least that is my speculation - and it being speculation means I could be wrong.

I respectfully disagree.  My hypothesis is that they just could not intellectually grasp that somebody can be very rich without having a huge taxable income and that the really rich people moreover generally have lots of opportunities to structure things such that they do not pay a lot of taxes.  These criteria were defined by some bureaucrats very remote from all this.

7 hours ago, Thailand J said:

I  had submitted  my application on Oct 11 but I did not sleep well with the fact that someone has my US tax returns and investment accounts information. Early next day I signed on and deleted the uploads.

Unless something changed, deleting things does not remove them from the servers of the BOI even if it might appear like this. 

1 hour ago, Guavaman said:

Sorry, here is a  BOI link to 743:  https://ltr.boi.go.th/documents/Royal-Decree-743.pdf

Yes, thank you for this.  But if I may ask you, @Guavaman, your conclusion that dividends, capital gains from financial investments and bond interest are not covered by the Royal Decree is something you worked out yourself based on your understanding of the document or this has also been confirmed to you by some tax advisor?

14 minutes ago, Thailand J said:

Just my opinion. Property should include investments.

Let's see what @Guavaman says about his sources.  He might well be right.  Or maybe this is another area where just nobody knows.

4 hours ago, Guavaman said:

First, read the Royal Decree here: https://www.rd.go.th/fileadmin/user_upload/kormor/newlaw/Eng_IBC_Royal_Decree.pdf

This link is to the Royal Decree No. 674.  But is the Royal Decree dealing with LTR visa holders not Royal Decree No. 743 (https://www.pkfthailand.asia/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Royal-Decree-743.pdf) (not sure what its link is for the rd.go.th website)?  I think you are still quoting from the correct Royal Decree, but the link is incorrect. 

As @Thailand J above, I am not sure if your interpretation of what is included / not included is correct.  But if it were - and prima facie you might well be right and I just always did not pay proper attention to this - this would be a rather unpleasant surprise.

If I may ask, is this only what you came up with yourself reading the documents or was this also confirmed to you by some tax advisor?

1 hour ago, Guavaman said:

Royal Decree Issued under the Revenue Code Governing Reduction of Tax Rates and Exemption of Taxes (No. 743) B.E. 2565 (2022)

Section 5 Income tax under Part 2 of Chapter 3 in Title 2 of the Revenue Code shall be exempted for a foreigner categorised as Wealthy Global Citizen, Wealthy Pensioner, or Work from-Thailand Professional who is granted a Long-Term Resident Visa under immigration law for assessable income under section 40 of the Revenue Code derived in the previous tax year from an employment, or from business carried on abroad, or from a property situated abroad, and brought into Thailand.

--------------------------------

EXEMPTED UNDER ROYAL DECREE 743

Section 40 Assessable income is income of the following categories including any amount of tax paid by the payer of income or by any other person on behalf of a taxpayer.

(1) Income derived from employment, whether in the form of salary, wage, per diem, bonus, bounty, gratuity, pension, house rent allowance, monetary value of rent-free residence provided by an employer, payment of debt liability of an employee made by an employer, or any money, property or benefit derived from employment.⁴

(5) Money or any other gain derived from:

(a) rent of property,

(8) Income from business, commerce, agriculture, industry, transport or any other activity not specified in (1) - (7).

 

NOT EXEMPTED UNDER ROYAL DECREE 743

(4) Income that is:

(a) Interest on a bond, deposit, debenture, bill, loan whether with or without security, the part of interest on loan after deduction of withholding tax under the law governing petroleum income tax, or the difference between the redemption value and the selling price of a bill or a debt instrument issued by a company or juristic partnership or by any other juristic person and sold for the first time at a price below its redemption value. Such income also includes income assimilated to interest, benefit or other consideration derived from the provision of a loan or from a debt-claim of every kind whether with or without security.

(b) Dividend, share of profits or any other gain derived from a company or juristic partnership, a mutual fund or a financial institution established under a specific law in Thailand for the purpose of providing a loan in order to promote agriculture, commerce or industry; the part of dividend or share of profits after deduction of withholding tax under the law governing petroleum income tax.

(g) Gains derived from transfer of partnership holdings or shares, debentures, bonds, or bills or debt instruments issued by a company or juristic partnership or by any other juristic person.

This is really useful.  Where is this from, please?

35 minutes ago, Thailand J said:

Reply from BOI to my question about tax exemption for LTR visa holders:

Please kindly note that this answer refers to the situation BEFORE the announced planned changes in the taxation of foreign earnings.  How things will be afterwards is therefore not really addressed in there.

1 hour ago, redwood1 said:

Well, the ATM point is valid for 2 reasons...

 

#1 If your card is ever not returned, you will have someone to talk to..

#2 ATMs at a bank have a much lower chance of having a skimmer..

And that is not only good advice for Thailand, but for any country really!

8 hours ago, Flyguy330 said:

Malaysia DOES NOT tax residents foreign income - unless you remit it to Malaysia from a non DTA country (and/or with no tax paid proof).

Thank you very much for your highly useful insights on Malaysia. 

Could you kindly elaborate what is meant with "unless you remit it to Malaysia from a non DTA country", please?  Does this mean that

(1) the mere and sole fact that there exists some double taxation agreement between Malaysia and country X makes all funds remitted from country X tax free in Malaysia for a foreigner or

(2) it depends on what the DTA precisely says about these funds (which is how things normally work in the realm of DTAs) or

(3) this is unclear? 

Thank you.

8 hours ago, TroubleandGrumpy said:

One problem is that funds in a Thai bank are only 'Govt Guaranteed' up to a total of 1 Million Baht.

It used to be 15 Million, but the Junta gradually reduced the guarantee over the years.

So what would you consider to be the "safest" banks in Thailand from a fraud/bankruptcy risk point of view?

2 hours ago, stat said:

Thanks for your post! I fully agree one has to follow the situation very closely as the Thais could come up with the "easy" solution that every penny is taxable that does not come with a translated certificate signed in person by Joe Biden and the Pope that Mr. Stat has paid withholding tax in the US. I very much doubt that Thai RD will provide anything remotely similar to the UK non-dom remittance rules if they provide any further explanation at all. My guess would be they leave the final decision to the individual RD inspector, which would a nightmare scenario.

In the UK it is basically such that once you have mixed funds it is often impossible to separate them again and so you are taxed

Just now, stat said:

Thanks a lot! Then I would be off the hook as I have a lot of dividends that come with withholding tax that are way more then what I will transmit to Thailand. I really hope that with suficient planing one will owe next to zero in thai income tax.

Have a look at the UK non-dom remittance rules for mixed funds and you will see that things could also get hugely worse than what apparently happens in Malaysia. 

3 hours ago, TroubleandGrumpy said:

making such a change with 3 months notice is very lieley to be ruled as being against the Tax Laws/Constitution

Would Thai courts actually be independent enough to make such a ruling against a determined government?

P.S.:  This is not a rhetorical question.

4 hours ago, dontpanic said:

You have all your finance dealings in Dubai and your taxes have been assessed and deemed to be 0% (still possible to get 0% even with the new corporate tax) because they have been assessed and deemed 0% would this then mean that there would be no tax to pay in Thailand? I had a look at the dta with Thailand and UAE, pages and pages of headaches but I did find a few bits of info that would suggest that if you have your business interests there (all your financial dealings) then that would go towards UAE having priority over Thailand. Also you need to be in country for 90 days within a calendar year and this gives you tax residency there. If you where to live the remainder of the year in Thailand you would obviously be classed as tax resident in Thailand also. But because all your finances are in Dubai this would give Dubai the right over any taxes? Which have been deemed 0% and "assessed"

 

I'm sure people who have been used to 0% from UAE from which they get their money, dividends, interest savings etc from would not be willing to go to the strongest tax bracket in Thai tax because of this half sentence change in the tax law

Highly unlikely except for those income categories where the DTA unequivocally states that the EXCLUSIVE tax authority lies with the UAE which is usually only very few or even no income category at all.  You can check the DTA.  For all other income categories Thailand most likely will fully tax you and kindly give you a tax credit in the amount of any tax you have paid on this income in the UAE (zero) so you will de facto get fully taxed in Thailand.  Welcome to Thailand

22 hours ago, observer90210 said:

Dengvaxia (c) seems to be one of the few vaccines around and the only one with European Union approval.

Wrong.  Qdenga is now also approved and is the much better vaccine for those who did not have dengue previously.

1 hour ago, oldcpu said:

After the first couple of document rejections, I started calling the BoI office to get a better handle on why they did not like any specific document I provided, ... or ask BoI if a document I had just provided after a request was satisfactory. 

So you did actually manage to speak to the person dealing with your case?  The reason I am asking is because prior to this I thought this was not possible.

11 hours ago, stat said:

"outlaws" will learn the hard way like Al Capone did IF RD holds up this directive.

I will follow the law, but even reputable tax advisors have expressed their doubt about the effectiveness and efficiency of the Thai Revenue Department:

"Although Revenue Departmental Order Por. 161/2566 overturns the longstanding exemption and establishes blanket PIT collection on offshore-sourced income when it is brought into Thailand, the effectiveness and efficiency of the Thai Revenue Departmentʼs collection of the tax due remain to be seen. Generally, PIT collection depends on taxpayersʼ faithful and full declaration of income in their PIT returns filed by the end of March each year."

(https://www.tilleke.com/insights/thailand-new-order-closes-tax-loophole-for-offshore-sourced-income/)