Mike Lister

I manage a pot of money that is an inheritance that will be left to someone else, it's about 100k Pounds so not huge. In the past I've invested those funds similar to the way I've invested my own funds, but lately I've decided to put those investments on automatic! I'm going to put a large portion into global trackers, but I can't decide whether it's better to put them into something global such as HSBC FTSE All World or whether I should put them into separate index trackers such as S&P 500, FTSE Developed EU and FTSE 350 etc. The problem with global trackers is you have no choice but to take the ride when one market goes South. At least with individual index trackers it's easy to shut down say the US or UK investments without impacting everything else. Does anyone have a view on this?

That scheme is still not live so I doubt that it's priced into the value of THB. Most of what we're seeing with THB presently is driven by USD value and USD interest rates. Once government debt increases because of the scheme, then I would expect to see further falls. Another aspect is that as of the end of March, only 50% of the current year budget has been disbursed, the other 50% was with held to help support the case that the economy was in trouble hence the giveaway scheme was much needed. What is likely to happen is that the scheme will be started, the remaining budget released and government will look like hero's for saving the day, then they can say, I told you so. What will happen thereafter is that water will find its own level and things will revert to the norm and everyone will realise that government just increased its debt, for no good reason and the Baht will fall further.

Scaremonger

The price of gold is falling because the threat of war in the ME has subsided. The value of THB is falling because USD is strengthening, for two reasons. The first is its safe haven status in times of conflict and second because the US economy is roaring back to life and US rates will remain higher for longer.

The broader question was asked about why foreign credit cards were disliked, "Seems like foreign cards are frowned upon everywhere in the country now. What could be the reason"? I'm pretty sure this is a charging issue, it's highly unlikely to be a tax issue at this early stage in the proceedings..

The midpoint rate is set by the FOREX system but the spread on either side of it is set by banks.

The 40 million tourists will think that's a great idea! How to kill tourism in one step.

As member @eisfeld wrote earlier, "Both Visa and Mastercard have cross-border transaction fees or different interregional interchange rates", which means this is a cost cutting exercise at a time when the Baht is quite weak so those charges are expensive.

This might depend where the currency conversion from USD into THB is done. The Thai banks forex margins on currency exchange are much tighter than in the West, the spread between buy and sell is quite narrow here. If the conversion is done at BB NY, the the ex rate will be worse than if the exchange was done in Thaiiand. Do you remit USD when you send funds to BB NY or do they make the exchange in NY?

Your problem is the BB charge which none of us seem able to escape in a Thai banking market that is really a monopoly with no real foreign competition.

Using BB NY for your international transfers means you're using the US ACH system and BB is taking care of the long haul. If I understand what you've written correctly, BB NY charges you $10 for that? If you send the money directly to Thailand you would need to use SWIFT or IACH, both of which charge for their services, plus, BB Thailand would levy a receiving charge. You say your US bank doesn't charge for international transfers so that may negate the SWIFT charge but not the BB Thailand charge.

Many thanks for that.

I'm not sure how sound the business decision is that decides to stop accepting a major payment vehicle used by foreigners, it's not as if they can easily obtain a Thai credit card, although a Thai debit card is easy enough. They must be very confident they can force the foreigner to use a different payment method, without loosing them completely. Perhaps what this highlights is the lack of competition.

That doesn't make a lot of sense since International tourism is dependent on credit card spending. I very much doubt this is a BOT rule, more likely True but I don't know why. The Revenue? Seems very unlikely to me.

The answer to your question is, you have to tell them! Your job is to fill out a tax return and tell them whatever you want to tell them, based on the funds that you import into Thailand. You can say what ever you like but you should be aware that if they decide to check, you will need to prove what you said and if they catch you out, the penalties are harsh.

There are several issues here. A capital gain is not realised until the asset is sold, until that time, there is no gain. The crystalised gain is measured against the purchase price, or in the case of Thai tax, potentially against the value on 31 December 2023, if that can be measured. It's fairly straight forward to measure the value of say investments that can be marked to market, as of a certain date, but the value of property on a particular date is much more difficult to assess. If the gain has been realised (as in crystalised) prior to 1 January 2024, both capital and gain would be free of Thai tax, if the funds were imported into Thailand. If the gain is realised after 1 January 2024, we do not know how the TRD will want to measure the gain, against what valuation point. The next major obstacle is the way that TRD will treat the importation of the combined capital and gain, will they say that gain comes first, capital comes second or will they pro rata all remittances. In both of these issues we need to hear from the TRD to understand what their preferred treatment will be of CG valuation points, relative to 1 January 2024 and also the treatment of the combined capital and gain, when they are remitted.

You are correct, yes. The point I was trying to make is that commingling was likely a standard practise for many, for many years, not that there is a tax downside that results from doing so, because of the 1 January 2024 rule.

For many, the records keeping approach will be the only solution because the funds will have been commingled for a long time and there is little opportunity to separate them and/or, open additional accounts. In a worst case scenario where the funds are commingled and the return is made that is subsequently audited and proof becomes necessary, a trail of sound documentation that clearly sets out events is better than the alternative in that situation, which is nothing....at that point there's nothing to lose and potentially a win to be had. And who knows, we may yet find out that TRD doesn't have a policy on commingled accounts and decides against having one, wouldn't that be nice!

No, but a couple of websites below that mention Bowins: https://www.thaiwebsites.com/buy-silver-thailand.asp https://thesilverconnection.com/

In the earlier exchange, the poster was describing tax evasion, not tax avoidance. He talked about pretending to use Gift tax to his wife who would then give the gift to him, that was the implication. That is not avoidance, that is very clearly evasion. Avoidance is when a person takes legal steps to avoid paying tax.

Member @Dogmatix will probably be able to answer your question since he also runs a business here, I'm sure he'll be along shortly.

I'll permit this deviation from the main focus of the thread because it is a related point that is worth everyone's understanding. The reason BOT has tight controls over the purpose of remittances and withdrawals is because the Baht is not freely convertible, even overseas banks are disallowed from holding more than set limits plus THB is not traded for delivery on any of the global exchanges. In short, the baht is a restricted currency and BOT wants to understand the purpose of all foreign remittances and also tightly controls the outflows to the extent that THB cannot be exported in more than small amounts, except to neighbouring countries where the amounts are increased.

I have updated the tax guide document to include various things, including: - greater clarity of some points - sample completed tax return link - map of TRD regions/districts - described the tax return filing process more fully - clarified that TRD fines for not filing a return when no tax is due are not always levied - linked the TRD e-filing site where lists of agents can be founds - described the TIN process more fully. I continue to have ad-hoc problems with some links, all of which work fine in the master copy of the guide on my desktop but sometimes fail when the document is uploaded. Even after checking the links, once the document is uploaded, they work fine for me but not so for others! This is WIP.

I have updated the document to include various things, including: - greater clarity of some points - sample completed tax return link - map of TRD regions/districts - described the tax return filing process more fully - clarified that TRD fines for not filing a return when no tax is due are not always levied - linked the TRD e-filing site where lists of agents can be founds - described the TIN process more fully. I continue to have ad-hoc problems with some links, all of which work fine in the master copy of the guide on my desktop but sometimes fail when the document is uploaded. Even after checking the links, once the document is uploaded, they work fine for me but not so for others! This is WIP.

The statement in the guide regarding commingled funds remains broadly the same, but now makes it explicitly clear that the account holder must wait until the TRD makes its prefered method of account management known. Until that time, there are only two options available and that documentation and audit trail alone, may not be sufficient. 70) Some tax authorities have policies regarding commingled funds, policies such as LIFO, (last in, first out) which is primarily an inventory management technique but could be used with commingled fund accounts. The UK says that capital and gain entering a mixed or commingled account, loses its identity and that any remittance from the fund, is income first, capital second. Yet another option might be that any remittance is viewed as comprising interest/gain or income first and capital second. We are not aware of the TRD policy regarding commingled funds or even if one exists. If you hold funds in this way, until such time as the TRD policy on this is made clear, you only have two options open to you. The first is to keep detailed records that describe all the feeds into the commingled account and hope that will be sufficient, or separate the sources into their own accounts.