Mike Lister

Up to you.

You have several choices: Avoid becoming Thai tax resident in the current year and wait and see how all of this plays out early next year. Use a Thai CPA tax professional to guide you. Follow the lead of the large tax consultancies such as PWC, combined with answers from the TRD Q&A sessions, along with your own interpretation of the rules. In the first year of implementation, the last option is not an unreasonable one since it allows you to see how things play out when tax returns are filed in 1Q25 and foreigners report their experiences.

The rules as we understand them currently are these: All income earned before 1 January 2024 is free of Thai tax, when remitted to Thailand, including savings from salary earned before that date. I don't know the date on that video but I suspect it was made after the new rule (Por 161) was announced on 15 September 2023 but before the 1 January 2024 concession (por 162) was granted on November 20 2023. https://sherrings.com/foreign-source-income-personal-tax-thailand.html

Er, I confess, I bought GBP 5k of Vanguard Global Small Caps only today. My wife can't resist a sale or a discount, some of it must have rubbed off on me. 🙂

It doesn't matter who receives the funds in Thailand, only that they were remitted from overseas to Thailand, by a Thai tax resident, in which case they are regarded as YOUR assessible income. From a Thai tax perspective, point A would be the better option, because the funds are not assessible to Thai tax.

Not that I'm aware of. This has been discussed by Sheryl many times in the past.

Yes I agree with that. Small caps are a particular problem in that respect with over USD 600 bill in loans needing refinance in the next few years..........few people want to buy US small caps as a result. https://www.riotimesonline.com/a-looming-financial-storm-the-600-billion-debt-challenge-for-u-s-small-caps/

You should watch the video again, it doesn't say that his savings are taxable. What it says is that the person has savings AND pension income and the pension income is taxable. Even if the pension income was banked in the UK and remitted to Thailand later, that money would be taxable, IF it was earned after 1 January 2024. Any pension income earned and banked before that date, along with any savings already in the bank, is not taxable.

I have removed seven posts that discussed tax evasion strategies, further posts on this subject will be removed without notice. 5. You will not use ASEAN NOW to post any material which is knowingly or can be reasonably construed as false, inaccurate, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of any law. Topics or posts deemed to be scaremongering, deliberately misleading or which deliberately distort information will be removed. In factual areas such as news forums and current affairs topics member content that is claimed or portrayed as a fact should be supported by a link to a relevant reputable source. 6. You will not post or link to items or content that are illegal in Thailand or any other country within ASEAN. This includes but is not limited to gambling, prostitution, pornography, narcotics, counterfeit items, illegal file sharing or streaming services of copyrighted material, pyramid schemes, etc. Discussion of the items included within this rule are permitted as a reply to a news item, but never as a "how to" topic. Discussions must not contravene local laws.

79% of companies that reported in the latest US earnings season, reported increased profit, that's good.

What you have written is only true as a rule, in some tourists areas, by and large it is at the discretion of each hospital. Here in the North there is very little segregated pricing that you describe, perhaps more so in Phuket, Bangkok and Pattaya perhaps.

And I did very similar some years ago. The District office clearly didn't want to be bothered with handing out TIN's to farang so they sent me to the Regional office who happily obliged. It's not much different to opening a bank account here, one branch says no, another person says no, so you go to a new branch and a new person.

The Introduction to Tax says this about the refusal of staff to issue a TIN: There is no valid reason why a TRD office should refuse to issue you with a TIN, as long as as you have all the required documents and they are all in order. If you are met with refusal, the head office in Bangkok will be most interested. If you continue to have problems obtaining a TIN, the Revenue Department Help Line number is 02 272 8000 and they will be able to assist you.

I am away from my home presently but will respond to this later today.

I don't think that matters that much because FOREX reacts to the news rather than the fact. Overnight, the USDI fell to 104 and USD/THB weakened to 36.27 spot, and that's before BOT has woken up.

Still very much on the same theme of the Thai economy: Last nights US CPI report came in better than expected, that means the Fed interest rate increases are having the desired effect and US inflation is falling. But look look what else happened as a result: The YEN strengthened over 1% US Equities surged Long dated bond yields fell Long bond values increased, AND, critically, USD fell in value by 1% overnight, down from 106 to 104 in two weeks Markets are now increasing bets that the Fed will cut rates, sooner rather than later. The current estimate suggests 85% certainty of a quarter point by September. All of which means, the Baht will strengthen slightly this morning, the cost of imports, including oil, is down slightly and the chances of improved FDI have increased. It's only a small change but the impact is significant and suggests the future of the Thai economy is improving, even if the cause is reduced US inflation rather than anything Thailand or its government has done. "One swallow does not a Summer make", but.....! This is the big problem this year. US inflation could/should cool further this year and all the things listed above will improve further. The result will be a stronger baht/cheaper imports and the government can throw up its hands in glee and claim to have saved the day, without having changed or improved anything and really, without needing to do anything whatsoever!

What basis can there be to think that TRD staff who prepare or assist with tax prep will begin to require supportive documentation at that early stage, a combined filing and audit all in one perhaps! Unless you can provide a sound reasoning for that, I think that's scaremongering and runs the risk of intimidating people into not filing when they ought to.

All of these topics are circular debates that have been debated many times, concluded, laid to rest and then you bring them up again, for whatever reason. Poster Dogmatix explained in great detail the translation of the word "taxpayer", from Thai to English, in the English version of the Revenue code. Yet here you are again, questioning what the word means, just as you have constantly and repeatedly revisited every single debate in the long tax thread. It's enough for most of us to be able to take the parts that are understood and to file them as wins, before moving on to the next challenge. Most of us are happy to conclude the definition of assessable income, or what "taxpayer" means, of who should file a tax return when, given our understanding of the rules along with a whole host of other aspects. You seem unable to log any aspect as a win, you classify everything as uncertain and unsure, pending an announcement by the TRD, pending clarification by the TRD, subject to the mood of the TRD employee that day, etc etc. If we had adopted your style and approach to this whilst compiling the Introduction to Thai Tax, we'd still have a blank sheet of paper that said only.....pending, whilst none of the members would know anything more about Thai tax today than they did six months ago. Remember the list of unknowns and unclear points that was over a full page at one point? The readership worked its way through them and arrived at satisfactory answers to all the points bar three, except you want to populate the page once again, with those same points! It's as if the entire tax thread, all 8k+ posts, has uncovered or concluded absolutely nothing in you eyes, this is why we have no common ground.

"a taxpayer is someone that has to pay the taxes". This is incorrect and has been covered many time previously. The term "taxpayer" refers to anyone within the tax system. People who receive tax credits or repayments of tax withheld on bank account interest are referred to as taxpayers, this is the case in many if not most countries. It is a generic term for anyone who is inside the tax net or who is capable of being inside. The tax rules implemented by the Malaysian tax authorities are not any sort of guide to the rules the Thai Revenue may enact, just as the rules implemented by any other country are not.

If anyone has difficulties getting a tax ID, call the Thai Revenue Help Line and tell them about it, they will be seriously interested to hear from you. The number is: 02 272 8000

I'm about to go for dinner so I'll leave this unanswered for a short while to see what other will say. I would ask you to consider whether you want an answer that complies with the TRD tax rules as we know them today or do you want an answer that is considered safe by many but doesn't necessarily align with the rules?

Members are being advised what the law says regarding TIN's they are not being commanded to absolutely comply with anything and never have! You on the other hand advised the member in this thread, " No you do not need a Tax ID - unless you need to lodge a tax return and pay income taxes", which is contrary to what the law states and you have no idea whether that law is enforced or not. You then stated, "100s of thousands of Expats over many decades in Thailand (past and present) have been remitting their pensions and acquired savings to Thailand for decades, and not one of them has been fined/charged by TRD for not getting a TIN and not lodging a tax return". You are not in a position to know whether those things are fact or not, hence it cannot be the basis of any sort of recommendations to ignore the law on TIN's and tax filing. Lastly you wrote: "noone is certain that they will be taxing retired Expats' Govt pensions - or not". Whether or not those government pensions are taxed will be determined by individual country DTA's all of which may differ. What we can say with some certainty is that the US and the UK DTA's at a minimum preclude the TRD from taxing their respective government pensions ergo it is likely that many other countries may be similar.

We know with absolute certainty that foreign residents exiting Thailand do not have to provide a Tax Clearance Certificate, unless they belong to one of the few categories required to do so. In light of the foregoing, it is very safe to ignore the Tax Clearance Certificate rule, even though it exists on the books, because none of us have been asked to obtain one when we have exited the country or applied for a visa extention. The TRD rule stating when a TIN must be acquired is far less obvious, there is no evidence, not even anecdotal evidence, suggesting that rule is not in force today. When a member asks whether they need to acquire a TIN, it is safe to quote the TRD rules on this but it is not safe to tell them to completely ignore them.

Please be aware that the latest version of the Introduction to Thai Tax is version 12 Rev B dated 13 May 2024 and is linked below. If you try to locate the document using a google search you are likely to find old versions of the original thread and document dated January that are now locked and unused for several months and are woefully out of date, unfortunately I am unable to delete them. The correct document and thread below are pinned as the first thread in the Jobs, Economy, Banking, Business, Investments forum.

The list of summary points posted earlier was updated in recent versions and now reads as follows: SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS a) The threshold for filing a tax return is very low, tax residency and income of 60k Baht for a single person, 120k for a married person, in a single tax year. A fine is capable of being levied for not filing, even if no tax is due. b) The TRD Tax Code appears more domestic centric than international. Many aspects of Thai tax law that affect foreigners in Thailand are not well documented for public consumption. Consequently, knowledge gaps exist that are slowly being filled. c) The tax year is the calendar year which ends on 31 December, tax returns must be filed the following year, before 31 March. d) Only income remitted to Thailand is potentially taxable in Thailand, income that remains overseas is not taxable for foreigners. e) You must be present in Thailand for 180 days or more per calendar year before you are considered tax resident (a day can be as a little as a few minutes). The 180 days can be spread over multiple visits. f) There is no double taxation but some types of income may be taxed at a different rate, some lower, some higher or some not at all. g) Dual Tax Agreements (DTA’s) exist between Thailand and over 60 countries, each is different, you must read and understand yours. h) The tax treatment of a person from one country, using a certain type of income, may not be the same as that of another person from a different country, using the same or even different type of income. DTA rules are country, person and income type dependent. i) Tax returns are filed using the honour system. You must declare your income, without any supporting paperwork and this will either be accepted or not, just as in the US and UK. If supporting evidence is required, it will be requested later. j) Income that is taxed overseas should not be completely taxed over again in Thailand, provided the DTA rules are followed. Tax paid on income overseas may be capable of being credited and used to offset any Thai tax assessment on the same income. This may result in a refund/credit of tax already paid, payment of additional tax, or nothing at all. k) Assessable income in Thailand may take many forms, bank transfers, cash, cheques, overseas debit card, ATM transactions etc. and potentially, credit card transactions. l) Generous Tax Exemptions, Deductions and Allowances (TEDA) exist, along with a zero rated tax band, combine to create a significant tax free buffer for many tax payers. m) How you intend to use your imported funds in Thailand is of no concern to the RD and does not change the taxation of those funds. n) Not all aspects of Gift Tax are fully understood, similarly, the way that the TRD will treat partial remittance of overseas Capital Gains is not known. o) For the most part, the various tax treaties do not limit the extent to which pension, dividend, rental and interest income can be taxed by Thailand.