Ricardo

1 hour ago, jacko45k said:

I had plans, but darn that baht has recently got more expensive!

One suspects a last-minute rush of resident-expats, getting their dosh into the country, before the deadline !  

24 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

He is quite right that the guys at the RD will help you fill in a form and be reasonably cheerful about it... I gave them a big tin of biscuits to sweeten the task! 

Note to self  ...  buy shares in biscuit-manufacturers, on the first working-day after Christmas !  

But I must admit, I followed a similar strategy when having a problem at Immigration, a couple-of-years ago.

Merry Christmas to all expats !  And to keep smiling !  

2 hours ago, samtam said:

 

And a re-enactment scene, with finger pointing.

Great, a spot-the-missing-elephant competition, much better than those too-easy spot-the-football ones !  

2 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

You will need a Resident Certificate to buy or sell an elephant and they will track any future elephant transactions from there.

They'll track it via the trail of elephant-poo, if by no other means !  

Better invest in a strong dustpan & brush ?

But probably good for your rose-garden !  

1 hour ago, The Cyclist said:

 

Probably Ricardo, non of my Accounts in Thailand are interest bearing, so I have no idea how that actually works.

 

It was a pointer towards the many people on the thread who have wailed that banks could withhold 15% of remittances, and / or, require people to go and get a TIN starting 01 Jan 2024.

How it usually works, when the bank update my own savings-account passbooks, they show entries for interest-earned and tax-deducted, on the trivial sums involved.  I've never bothered to get a TIN, or file a self-assessment return, to reclaim the tax  ...  life's too short already.  

As you say, I don't yet see that principle being extended to automatically deduct 15% from all remittances received by individual expat tax-residents, in the current proposals  ...  but who knows what the future holds, with a mildly-socialist impoverished-government anxious to fund its promised-agenda ?

Confuscious might have said, if contributing to this thread, "May you live in interesting, but less-taxing, times !"  

ps  Apologies Mike, I was typing as you posted, you're correct IMO

47 minutes ago, The Cyclist said:

 

On that note. My 1st remittance od 2024 will hit my bank on the 03 Jan, it will be interesting to see if the much vaunted 15% withholding tax will be applied or whether I will be instructed to present my butt to the bank with a TIN.

 

Isn't the 15% witholding-tax only levied on interest earned/paid by the bank ?   

I hadn't heard, but am open to correction, that it would also apply to transfers-in.

1 hour ago, tomkenet said:

I have to file tax report anyway to get the certificate of residency.

I didn't need to do that, last time I needed a certificate-of-residency, to apply for a 5-year Thai driving-license, FWIW.

Just a slow (IIRC 30-days wait) process at Immigration, which could be turned into next-day service, for a modest (B500 ?) administrative-fee.  

4 hours ago, tomkenet said:

My plan is prior to 2024 deposit in a savings account back home money to last for 3-4 years in Thailand. 

Let's call this money X which can be remitted taxfree.

 

Erm, wouldn't the savings-account possibly generate interest on money-X, said interest arising after 1.1.2024, which would perhaps therefore be taxable here when transferred ? 

Maybe see if you can get the saving-account to pass the interest to another (undeclared) account, to be safe ?

34 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

The problem is that the 65K monthly deposit may be taxable in 2024.

Spot-on ! 

I would guess that many people like myself, previously using monthly-transfers for retirement/married-extensions, will have been rushing to change to B800k/B400k on-deposit, recently  ...  if they can fund it.

1 hour ago, Danderman123 said:

There's 2 different components, as you suggest:

 

How long one is resident in Thailand per year, and

 

How much money is transferred into the country during that year.

 

The $64K question is: does residence for more than 179 days automatically require filing a tax return, or, if the income is zero, can filing the return be waived?

You're tax-resident here, as many of us have been for years, but I don't think that necessarily means that you have to get a TIN or make a self-assessment return.  Why trouble the RD, if you don't actually owe them anything, until they say that they do now require that paper-shuffling process ?

I certainly haven't registered or filed previously, since I have always arranged my affairs so as to have no assessable-income, using the long-standing prior-year earnings route.  This has never been a problem.

Like you, I am now changing how I fund myself (plus family) for tax-year 2024, so that I will continue to not owe any tax here, until things become clearer (hopefully by mid-2025).  This seems only sensible, to me.  If it should become clear to me, that registration and a Nil-return are required in future, then I shall still have remained entirely legal.  

And I shall rearrange my affairs further, if it becomes necessary, as we learn more about what's expected of us.  

37 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

The hope is by not transferring money into Thailand in 2024, I can stay in the country, but not be considered a tax resident.

Your tax-residency is determined by your having been in the country for more than 179 days, so I doubt that will work ?

On the other hand, having transferred-in little/no money during 2024, there ought to be nothing to declare or be assessed tax on, as we currently understand the new situation ?  So you can afford to await developments & clarification.

And if you're a US-citizen, as your post suggests, then your DTA should shield you from part of the effects ?

8 hours ago, Captor said:

Just fix the air pollution and the tourists will come back. Why do tourists want to travel with family to a country with dangerous air?

 

Look like TAT don't want see the elephant in the room

The reason the TAT can't see the elephant in the room, is that the smog is so very thick, reducing visibility !  

1 hour ago, Taxi said:

I have no idea what that photo is of, but the article is about an Airbus A220 flight, which is a single aisle aircraft.

Look again, the article clearly says A320, Thai Airways don't even have any A220s, which is a single-aisle plane with 2+3 economy-seating in normal-configuration.

The photo is clearly a wide-bodied plane, so not an A320 or an A320, it has to be photoshopped, for comparison purposes. 

Would the new PM care to also declare, that the widespread concern amongst foreign-residents about changes to the long-standing arrangements for taxing us, is also a "fake-news" story ?  

I doubt it, as it's currently still just an ill-considered proposal & internal-instruction within the Revenue Department, so only "semi-fake news".  

But it IS nevertheless causing very-great concern, and bad-publicity for the country !

Perhaps he might wish to clarify, that in-fact Thailand still welcomes tourists & longer-staying foreign-residents, and appreciates the contribution we all make when creating jobs & supporting our families & paying VAT/excise-duty/airport-departure-tax/land-taxes/immigration-fees, and states clearly that the proposal was all just a bad-dream (or misinterpretation or mistake by a junior official), and that we can all stop worrying about it ?  

25 minutes ago, JimTripper said:

 

death & taxes

Happily death generally only happens once, whereas taxes are annual (or more), and an experience laden with onerous paperwork, which I (and many others ?) had hoped to have left behind, when I retired to live here !  

I'd much prefer, if the RD want/need to raise serious amounts of money, that they raise the VAT-rate ?  Yet they seem reluctant to do something like that, surely not because it would impact their voters, and not just us allegedly-rich farangs.  

58 minutes ago, The Cyclist said:

 

Thanks Ricardo

 

Depending on what happens after the 01 Jan, the DWP might have to extract the finger and start sending P60's to State Pensioners overseas, to assist them with overseas taxation.

 

Which might catch some people out, who might possibly be still claiming to be in the UK.

I'd predict the chances of the DWP doing that, in order to assist pensioners living out here with a purely-local tax-problem, are somewhere between Slim & None-at-all !

But would love to be pleasantly surprised.  😎

This is the government which, despite promises over-the-years, are still happy to dis-enfranchise its' citizens, once we've been overseas for 15+ years, don't forget.  Yet still wants to tax us on any/all income arising in-the-UK.  🙄

But I digress.

4 hours ago, The Cyclist said:

 

On that note. Could any of the UK expats claiming the State Pension confirm if the DWP also send you an annual P60, bearing in mind that when I get too that age, and claim it, it will also be skelped for UK tax.

Certainly, I've been getting the UK Old-Age-Allowance for a few years now, and have never had a P60 off the DWP  ...  apparently HMRC get the numbers from them direct, presumably linked to your NI-number, so don't need/want a P60 too  ...  and the thought that we customers (aka Old Farts ?) might also find one useful, well why care what we might want ?  

That's British customer-service at its finest !  😎

1 hour ago, The Cyclist said:

 

I always wondered why my pension providers sent me annual P60's all the way out to Thailand  😂😂

And which sometimes even arrive here, when our local postie makes his weekly (if that) visit, to our village !  🙄

Not knocking Thailand, just making the point that the postal-service is sometimes imperfect.  😎

1 hour ago, TroubleandGrumpy said:

 

Dont leave - the Vogons are not here (yet).

Famous Last Words ?  😎 

On 10/23/2023 at 1:11 PM, billd766 said:

The SRT does not even cover 30% of Thailand and the HST will cover much less than that.

 

In addition to that the SRT Is already 230 Billion baht in debt and perhaps 50 years out of date.

 

Now they want to increase that debt by buying the HST made in China, instead of selling much of the surplus land that it owns and updating the existing system.

The SRT has been slowly trying to progress a 20-year track-doubling program for the past decade or more, it's still moving ahead, and might increase the movement of container-traffic to/from Laem Chabang from the North-East, North-West & Southern regions of Thailand  ...  which IMO is probably a good thing economically long-term.  Especially if regional transhipment-centres result in what an elderly Brit like myself might remember as a Freight-Liner system ?

Some may not realise that doubling a single-track system would more-than double the carrying-capacity of the routes, by eliminating delays while waiting for oncoming-trains to clear the next single-track section ?

Not high-speed (as the Lao railway isn't anyway) but medium-speed, and improving efficiency of an existing asset, at a much-lower/more-affordable cost to Thailand.  Without having to hand land over to a certain regional super-power, either.

2 hours ago, Rampant Rabbit said:

Nah thats just an upgrade to dual tracks so slow trains dont have to stop to let another pass in certain areas, its  all narrow  guage also if you go and look at it.

Correct, the SRT have slowly (it's a 20-year plan, and running late) been duelling some of their single-track main-lines, but it's all just a much-needed improvement of their existing metre-gauge system.

And not funded by China, as claimed.

Interestingly much of the new Chinese-built line through Laos is also reported to be single-track, with passing-places along the way, and is medium-speed at best (understandable given the difficult terrain), Wikipedia say "The railway is built on a single track with passing loops and is electrified to China's Class I trunk railway standards, suitable for 160 km/h (100 mph) passenger and 120 km/h (75 mph) freight trains" .

13 hours ago, stat said:

They dont need to as you have to present your passport when you exhange money in a bank or with superrich etc. You could exchange at home and lose like 3% on the exchange rate though. I would not carry more then 10K euro/USD any way.

Just to point out that one might ask one's everloving-wife, for one example, to pop into the exchange-shop with some Sterling/Dollar-cash, to be exchanged into Baht on your behalf. ????