Mike Lister

I have posted the correct and current link above, document dated 13 May Version 12.

That is not correct. The rules governing TIN's are set out in the current version of the document and are shown below. 79) Before you can file a tax return in Thailand, you must obtain a Tax Identification Number or TIN from the RD offices in your area. You are required by law to obtain a TIN, within 60 days from when you first derive the minimum assessable income, which is 120,000 baht of income received from overseas, after becoming tax resident. For long stay residents that will be a minimum of 180 days plus 60 days in country, in the same tax year. The Thai ID card number serves as the TIN for the local population. It is not necessary for people who are not Thai tax resident to obtain a TIN, neither is it necessary to obtain one if you do not exceed the assessable income level threshold.

Thank you for providing the information to that member but the link you used is to the original locked topic dated January and has been out of use for at least a month...the document in that link is four months old. The correct and current link is shown below:

It is not unreasonable that tax avoidance measures are referenced as a bi-product of discussing the broader Thai Tax system and the changes that have been made to it. We are reluctant however to encourage focussed discussions about tax avoidance, because they very quickly lead into discussions about tax evasion. If everyone can show some restraint and common sense in this area, it will be greatly appreciated.

There is a thread dedicated to discussing Australian Tax issues, please do not extend that conversation here. Thanks.

Accessing funds and filing a tax return to report assessable income are not necessarily the same thing, which I believe you already understand. We have had the full and complete discussion regarding compliance and enforcement, both in this thread and between you and I, please drop it!

So you can't actually buy curtains at these places then?

Thanks for that. You know I kinda thought that was the case but since I haven't used ATM's for international transfers or withdrawals in over two decades so I really couldn't be sure. I'm pretty sure if I used my HSBC UK debit card in a Thai ATM that I'd get hammered for charges but I'm not about to run a test and find out. 🙂

Interesting you're 30% int equ/70% MA I'm 35% int equ/35% trackers and 22% bonds +8% cash. A similar end result, just a different way to get there. Are you using VG Life for your MA's? I unloaded BNY Melon Balanced which was making an OK return but it was never going to generate more than a 50% return over 5 years and I felt I could do better with the same risk.

Royal London Diversified (not sustainable diversified) is a reasonable alternative,

Can I ask which linkers fund you're using? I see Powell just spoke and has reinforced his higher for longer matra, I think he's preparing everyone for no rate cuts this year. US CPI figures due Wednesday AM US time, maybe some clues there perhaps.

5 minutes or 30 minutes, whatever, unless you're in and out of the country every week, it's not a day long exercise. During the years I traveled extensively for work, I maintained a spreadsheet showing my whereabouts every day, for tax purposes, it makes entertaining reading now, so many years later.

I stand corrected, maybe I'm not up to date with ATM based ex rates.

The decision was taken not to rehash that topic, neither here nor in a separate thread. If and when it ever becomes real, then it can be debated.

The penalties for non-compliance and for evading Thai tax can be very harsh and are described in the tax guide.

May we please get the discussion back on track. the idea of issuing Tax Clearance certificates or similar to all foreigners is purely hypothetical at the stage and the implementation fraught with difficulty. Let's not get too deeply involved in exploring something that may never come to pass and which many will regard as scaremongering.

As you say, exchange rates are poor and ATM fees are high so there is no incentive to go down that path. That said, when a tourist withdraws money from their overseas account, via an ATM, in most cases they wont remain here long enough to become tax resident hence there is no tax liability. But a tax resident who does the same, leaves themselves liable to Thai tax on that withdrawal, subject to the TRD ever finding out. For most people, using this method is low risk, high cost.

The calculation is done based on entry and exit stamps in the passport, it only takes five minutes to do..

There has been no indication given that visa extension or issuance will be linked to Thai tax returns. It is a logical conclusion to think they may be linked in the future but that is not a simple matter. Some professions are already required to obtain tax clearance certificates before they can leave the country, musicians being one. But since many foreign residents in Thailand, here on long stay visa's, will not be required to file a tax return, mostly because they don't have assessible income, the process of subjecting all foreigners to the tax clearance certificate regime is fraught with difficulties.

I should have qualified what I wrote and said that for older people and those not use to an exercise regime, rapid weight loss is dangerous. In your case, it's far less so because you were doing a post winter burn off that was seasonal plus it sounds like you exercised a lot. I've just managed to shed 8 kgs over seven weeks and have had to stop because I'm overdoing it and was getting hypo in the morning. There's some medical stuff in there but now, being back at my 2016 weight once again I feel fantastic. I took a machete to my diet and am now very firmly back into healthy eating once again, to the point of driving my wife crazy at times. :)) What can I say, she runs a confectionary/bakery business, which was half the problem.

It's happening as we speak, PBOC has already weakened the CNY/USD rate to keep the Yuan more in line with regional peers. The impact on the Thai economy is unlikely to help exports that much because most of the trade between China and Thailand is paid for using currency swap agreements. That said, a weaker RMB would pair more easily with a weaker THB and ensure continuity of existing trade.

"Productivity is a measure of economic performance that compares the amount of goods and services produced (output) with the amount of inputs used to produce those goods and services". https://www.bls.gov/k12/productivity-101/content/what-is-productivity/home.htm

There are several problems with that: The first is, for the debt to be acceptable, the economy would not only have to be strong, it would have to be a durable economy and tourism is not durable. The second is that whilst 64% is not high, there's nothing to show for the debt apart from repeated political giveaways and subsidies. For example, there has not been any meaningful investment in education. The third concern is the speed of increase from 50% to 64% and soon to be much higher, again as a result of political giveaways rather than inward investment.

I don't think you necessarily need to even visit the ocean to be able to understand the cause of many of its problems today. Doctors don't need to see patients to be able to diagnose their health issues, in many/most cases they just need data. 65 years ago my dad read an article in the paper that talked about the hole in the ozone layer and global warming, it took him days to settle down after reading it and vented his anger at the press for printing such nonsense, "in this day and age". The many meteorological changes that I've witnessed between then and now are astonishing, cyclical change of that dimension don't take place over 65 years, it take millions.

I think it's great that some people can only see things as black or white, it saves so much time and effort.