Mike Lister

If you're not going to take a US CPA tax experts advice, there's no point looking for anyone better or asking the question here! Out.

Closed threads, never to be reopened or updated again threads. OK so it sounds like between what Jim told you and what you've said above that you're sorted, waiting is a good plan.

I say seriously because you've already asked these questions and recieved sound advice from Jim Gant who is expert on US taxes, in the thread linked below:

Have you tried reading the tax guide?

Seriously?

"I am not criticizing those who unnecessarily filed returns such as yourself". I have assessible income in Thailand that must be reported under Thai tax law and I chose to do so. What is unnecessary about that! Any informal statistics you may have developed over however many years, from whatever casual sources, regarding how many expat foreigners do or do not pay tax on overseas income in Thailand is purely anecdotal, that is definitely not up for debate.

"sales to foreigners accounted for 38% of the total, with units priced below 3 billion baht making up nearly half of these purchases". I'm sure the article intends to read, 3 million and not 3 billion, which doesn't sound like dirty money territory to me.

I am certain that if you talk with them, they will make the transfer in one shot. People transfer much larger amounts by SWIFT regularly.

Hmm, doesn't look like the threat of new tax laws has put a dent in that market after all!

You have no knowledge regarding how many retired foreigners have or have not paid tax on overseas income or filed returns each year, your statement in bold above is only a guess. Anecdotal data from posts on this forum over many years however, have reported many many times that pensioners often use the monthly income method and have their pensions deposited directly into Thai banks, I am one such person and have done so for years. Those are pensioners who in many cases, under previous and existing rules, probably had assessible income and probably ought to have filed tax return under Thai Revenue tax law.

Those things are plain and simply nonsense and not true, I deeply resent that distortion of the facts! I don't believe for one moment that you've even read that guide! 1) "I think by your (albeit well intentioned) information sharing, you've caused people more stress and anxiety than you've prevented". The conversations between the media and members in tax threads at AN started in September last year and increased in intensity. In January, I even tried to have one long thread closed because it was an incoherent ramble that confused everyone. By the time I started my work, three months ago, in January, one thread on Thai tax was already 6,000 posts and 215 pages long! All my thread did was to take the existing conversations, extract the facts and present them back in the form of a Simple Tax Guide that the average person could understand. 2) "You read of people on here, making decisions to stay or not stay in the country, based on what they've read in your guide. Nobody should be doing that- until more information comes to light". The Simple Tax Guide makes it clear from the outset and throughout that many aspects of what will happen are unclear and that everyone must wait until the RD clarifies matters. Anyone who took action in spite of that, was very foolish and has only themselves to blame, my strongest suspicion however is that those people saying they will leave, were nothing more than expressions of frustration rather than fact. At least one person, an Australian poster, declared over thirty times that he and his wife would return to Australia because of these laws, he kept repeating that message endlessly whilst other members did similar. That was nothing more than a knee jerk reaction and confirmation that they didn't have enough information and and were afraid, which was a driver for us to create the simple guide and provide easy to understand information about tax. 3) "Additionally, you've encouraged people who may register for a TIN to report on the "success" of that registration". Yes, we've always asked people to feedback their experiences to everyone else, what is wrong with that? 4) "You've speculated that Thai authorities will require "tax clearance" certificates and speculated it's likely tax status will be linked to immigration status in the future". No I have not! What I have done is mentioned in the guide that tax clearance certificates exist and are used in the US, I even said in the Guide they are not in use today when actually they are for several visa classes. I have also said that there is no link between the Revenue and Immigration and there are no plans to extend their use, that we know of. The tax guide says: 69) It cannot be entirely ruled out that at some point, a link may be established between tax filings and visa extensions. A law already exists that requires foreigners to apply for Tax Clearance Certificates before being allowed to depart the country but it is not being enforced currently. These things are possible because similar things have been adopted in several countries in the past, including the US. 5) "You've created and fostered hundreds of pages of discussion, consisting of mostly speculation, about a topic that yet has little clarity". No I have not done any such thing! See answer (1) above, all those discussions have taken place in the media and been reported by AN and elsewhere in the media. Plus embassies have held briefing sessions for their citizens and released the video's onto YouTube which have found their way into AN threads on tax. Additionally, every would be tax accountant and lawyer in Thailand has produced video's on this law in an attempt to get new business. All I've done is extract the facts from some of those reports and put them in the tax guide. (6) You then have defended anyone calling this "fear mongering". I don't know what you're trying to say here, it's ambiguous and unclear to me. Readers need to put on their big boy pants! The Thai tax laws changed, that caused lots of people to panic, encouraged by endless media reports, all speculating about this and that. That uncovered the fact that hardly anyone new jack sh*t about tax law and what the impact might be or what to do. All the Simple Guide has done is to provide them with that information and a basic education about tax. I see your post as an attack on me and the work we have done to help explain and make people understand. You cannot say everything that you have and misrepresent the truth the way you did so massively and then try to ameliorate your comments by saying my intentions were good, that's pure hypocrisy! Until you post a correction and present a more fair and balanced view of the facts, and you apologise for the misrepresentation you have created, all our work on tax and helping members stops here and not one more tax related question gets answered. We will find out very shortly in this thread whether the Simple Tax Guide has created the panic you mention or not. If it has, we need to stop everything this instant. If it has not, a retraction is required.

You are assuming that taxing foreigners is something new that has never been done before. The fact is Ryan, we've no idea how many foreigners are already being taxed here and have been paying tax for years. Just because tax is a new issue for many AN members, doesn't mean it's a new issue for all foreigners here. If I was told that the number of foreign tax payers was large, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

PM sent

See link below. There's a new version coming out tomorrow but you can start with this one. https://aseannow.com/topic/1319807-personal-income-tax-guide-for-foreigners-thailand/

FWIW we have been through that posters finances in great detail, several times and there is no Thai tax liability but there are anxiety issues which are not helped by all the uncertainty. This is one of the problems trying to comment on different peoples tax situation, you never understand the person behind the post you're reading so everyone needs to be very careful.

Doing nothing and staying quiet, wouldn't have helped those pensioners feel any better or address their concerns. Just think about it, guys who have been here for twenty plus years, doing OK on their pensions but not a lot of spare cash, suddenly think they are going to get hit for Thai tax that they can't afford. They have no living relatives back "home" and no where else to go, that was exactly what many of them were thinking.

It's a lot harder to tax a cash business than it is to track electronic bank transfers! That's why the unofficial economy or grey workforce here is so large at 48% of the total workforce.

Right, right, right and right.

A good question! I think it was because of the obvious panic that gripped so many people who appeared to have no knowledge whatsoever of tax and probably never had to understand it previously. That lack of awareness was never apparent to me previously, so when posters began sending me PM's asking for help whilst I was engaged in the long thread during October/November/December, it became obvious that somebody needed to do something. From memory I had over thirty tax discussions with mostly lower income pensioners, some of whom had been here a long time and many of whom were very scared, one poster appeared ready to self harm and sent some of us into panic mode. And whilst these long complex debates about CRS and capital gains etc are great, there's a large section of the expat population that needs just the basics and they were being overlooked.

I wish to deny this ugly rumour. 🙂

Not really. If I'm the Thai Revenue and you tell me that you've imported capital and I think it's income, you'll find a way to prove to me that it's what you say. 🙂

No, I understand the issue very well but we don't agree on whether the risk has increased or not. You think it has, I don't think it has, I think little has changed from a risk/responsibility standpoint. It's OK to have a different opinion, I don't mind that, in truth I doubt we could measure accurately who is right.

The CG side is more tricky. What you have written is true, as long as the CG can be separated between principle and interest/income. That can be easily possible in the case of stocks for example which can have a year end valuation. But a property CG is harder to value in that way. I do not know at this time what the TRD approach to this will be.

Those savings are not assessable regardless of when they are remitted, if they were earned prior to 1 January 2024. I wrote it that way purposely because if they are earned before 1 Jan but not remitted, obviously they are not assessible.

Not true, there is no difference between inbound funds remitted today and inbound funds remitted prior to 1 January 2024, they were both equally as likely to be assessable to tax or exempt, or not. The burden of proof does not change either. The obligation remains with the taxpayer to identify those funds correctly, determine their assessability and to decide whether a tax return should be filed or not. There was never an automatic assumption that the funds remitted last year were exempt and not earned in the same year, only the possibility existed that they were. Similarly, there is no automatic assumption today that the funds remitted today are assessable, they could just as easily be exempt under DTA rules, exempt because they were earned prior to 1 January 2024 or exempt because they were fully taxed overseas and no Thai tax was due..