JimGant

Here's one to puzzle over. The following is what I sent today to the LTR folks: Their answer: I dunno. I did my 90 day reports for years via EMS mail, which to me is the same as registered mail, without problem. I even had the return self addressed envelope as EMS. Their answer that the mail route could "take several months," because it's regular mail, not EMS is nonsensical. Believe they're trying to maintain agent business for the certified agents they've signed up. Just my guess, but otherwise it makes no sense, as SMART visa holders have had no problem with mail annual address notifications, as far as I know. Nevertheless, I sure don't have a warm fuzzy about doing my annual report by mail, at least until I hear some reports of success, which I havent' as of yet, at least on this thread.

Thai tax returns don't even have line items for foreign tax credits. So, even if you paid home country taxes on your benefits, and not on your contributions, how you'd finagle a tax credit into your Thai tax return is still an unknown... But, in the spirit of "no double taxation," I'd just come up with the amount of taxes you paid for 24 years on your contributions. Then, pro rate that amount over all and any future Thai tax obligations. If they never come up with a tax return with line items for credits, well then, just do an excel worksheet of what your Thai taxes would look like, then amortize enough of your 24 year payments to Oz to cover that Thai tax bill, and keep the paperwork in your upper left hand drawer, should the tax police come knocking (neve' hapin). But, no need to file a tax return, since you've eliminated any taxes owed. If they come up with a tax return with credit line items -- well, again amortize that 24 year chunk of change, covering a little more than your Thai tax bill (exact amount would look suspicious). Again, don't file -- no taxes owed, no fines assessed, no jail time. Easy. Anyway, nothing nefarious about this. You paid one country the taxes, the other country gives you a credit for that. No tax cheating (but maybe slightly in disaccord with the DTA, where Thailand, not Australia, issues the credit. Nevermind.) You're 100% OK in the integrity block; but maybe a little wobbly in the execution mechanics. Just keep good notes on all this math. Now, if Immigration asks for a tax return for future retirement extensions - come back to this forum and we'll kick the can down the soi a little further.....

Yeah, but the monies remitted are pre 2024, so they are not assessable/taxable as income. That you have to pay a purchase tax to the land office is a completely different matter.

What of it? I wire funds from a savings account originally funded 11 years ago, and containing more than enough for any future wires to Thailand. My Wise wires to Thailand go from this fund, thus it's all from pre 2024 income, and thus exempt from Thai taxation. But, if I put my Air Force retirement checks and Social Security checks into a new checking account -- and Wise transfer from that? Again, it's all tax exempt per the DTA. But if that account also had private pension deposits (taxable by Thailand, via the DTA) -- then I'd just say that all remittances from this checking account first came from Air Force pensions and Social Security. Any overage, then, would then tap into that private pension, and thus I would be in the accounting situation of saying that this overage is, yes, assessable (taxable) income for Thai tax purposes. As of right now, I'm in the driver's seat for accounting what monies are from what tranches in the financial accounts from which I wire money to Thailand from. The Thai tax folks are in no position to question the complexion of your remitted income -- that's necessarily up to you, if and when any such income becomes subject to a Thai tax return.

Golly, I hadn't thought of that.

Lemme see..... Yeah, I had to pay 50,000 baht for my LTR visa -- but I saved 10 trips to the Imm office for annual extensions, thus saving 57,000 in fees (1900+3800) x 10, for a profit of 7000 baht, plus savings in time, effort, and gasoline. And saved myself 10 trips to the bank for those required statements. Plus, no more opportunity cost for that mandatory 800k parked in a low interest bank account. Saved 35,000 per year by no longer needing a worthless health insurance policy required for O-A extensions (BoI gladly accepted my Tricare policy, which the O-A folks wouldn't). No more 90 day reports (no big deal, except when the online system crashes). And no investment required -- just needed to flash last year's 1099s to show I earned the required amount of income. And, of course, no worries about Thai taxation, courtesy of a Royal Decree. Thus, I can sit back, have a beer, and chuckle at all the hand wringing on these tax threads. So, I don't believe the LTR visa I got was a "poor value for money scheme."

Not sure where on all these threads to jump in on -- but maybe here's ok. Early in this drill we saw where Thai RD said, "have a DTA and show a tax return from home country -- and you're home free from Thai taxation." I think their original thinking is still in place. Why? Because of the simplicity, and thus no new hires and expenses to deal with tax credits against Thai taxation, whatever. So, if you can show a tax return from your home country -- which has a DTA with Thailand (or maybe even not, as it really doesn't factor in) -- that's it. Show it to Immigration for your annual extension. They don't need to go through the numbers -- that would be nonsensical -- they just need to see a home country tax return, even it it doesn't indicate any taxes being paid (because standard deduction exceeds gross income, etc). Not that they would even notice, nor need to. But, what if you have no home country tax return, because you're one of those lucky ones who haven't had to pay any taxes, to anyone, since retiring here in Thailand? Well, now, without a home country tax return to show, you now have to show a Thai tax return. And this tax return, if you've been honest, may just show taxes owed and paid. Or maybe not -- Immigration won't care -- they're just interested in the fact that you can produce a Thai tax return, in the absence of a home country tax return. Just another requirement, on top of a bank statement, TM30, whatever. No real additional cost to Immigration's overhead -- just the need to produce either a home country tax return, or a Thai tax return -- one more block for Immigration to check. Anyway, seems logical to me. For those of us paying home country taxes, I guess (as a Yank), I'll just need to flash my 1040 return to Immigration. No home country tax return? -- well, best learn how to file a Thai tax return -- and welcome to the world of having to pay someone taxes. Fair is fair.

Uh, this doesn't track with most DTAs. Take the US-Thai DTA. Private pensions are exclusively taxable by Thailand, the country of residence. That the US also taxes these pensions, as secondary taxation authority, means that, in the interest of avoiding double taxation, the US has to absorb a Thai taxation credit. As such, the US may realize no taxes, should the Thai credits exceed the US tax bill. And Thailand, as exclusive taxation authority, gets to keep the whole tax collection, without any offset from US tax credits. Thus, to say that all Thai taxation will be offset by taxes paid to the home country on this income -- in all situations -- is pure baloney. Thailand, if they have any gumption, will apply the DTA to their benefit, and apply full taxation to those monies indicated by the DTA -- and provide a tax credit for this full taxation to the home country. How this will work out in practice, I don't know. Amended tax returns, maybe, to slip that Thai tax credit into home country taxation? I just know Thailand probably will not give up taxes by absorbing tax credits that the DTA says should go the other way. Whatever. For most of us, this just means our total tax bill will be the same, only, if Thailand is smart, they'll monitor what's due them via the DTAs. And tax appropriately.

My wife's bank accounts don't have any withholding, since they're well short of the 20000 baht in interest that the Code then requires withholding of everyone -- plus her accounts are only registered with her Thai ID -- no US dual citizen connection. Now mine, of course, are registered with a US connection, thus a 15% withholding. Here's what the US-Thai DTA says about non-discrimination: Hmmmm. Already a foot in the door in thwarting treaty language.

Actually, Required Minimum Distributions (RMD) now begin at age 73. And, the money in your 401k account is not "deferred income," -- it's earned income in the year paid, with deferred taxation. Thus, all that money paid into your 401k account pre 2024 is exempt from Thai taxation. But, of course, like all worldwide income, it is taxable by the US. If you take an RMD in 2024, and then remit it to Thailand -- per the DTA, Thailand has exclusive taxation rights on that RMD. But the US also gets to tax it, due to the treaty's saving clause that trumps all DTA language. But here, as Thailand has primary/exclusionary taxation rights -- they get to keep all the taxation, and the US only keeps what's left after applying the Thai taxation credits. Sounds fair to me -- country where I live gets to use my taxes to their and my benefit.

Cost of property, plus subsequent capital improvements, certainly aren't income. Profit on the sale (cap gains) would be subject to taxation -- but not double taxation.

No!!!!

That's the biggest load of malarkey ever presented on these threads. Sadly, it will be gobbled up by the non critical thinkers -- kinda a MAGA moment in a foreign country. Jeez.

There's never going to be a "withholding at entry point" for any remittances. First and foremost, because remitted cash flows can never parse what is, and what isn't, income. Most probably are after tax capital for investment, living expenses, whatever. And "withholding at source" of income earned in the US, and remitted to Thailand -- is only for non resident aliens. Automatically at 30%, but reduced to treaty rates -- normally 15% -- if the alien files a W-8BEN. So, as a US citizen, any Thai taxation will be up to your self-assessment as to what is subject to Thai taxation via the DTA. Gov't pensions and Social Security are the obvious exemptions from Thai taxes. Sucking it from a pre 2024 bank account would also make it exempt. Just keep good records, in the unlikely event that you are subject to a random compliance audit.

The password certainly wasn't available to outsiders -- it's only written down in the sanctity of my office. That our two IRA accounts that USAA sold to Schwab three years ago had a recent hack attempt on Jan 26 -- but failed, as I had changed the passwords after the USAA transfer caper -- leads me to believe there's mischief about in the inner workings of USAA.

Well, it was on Nov 29th and 30th, when someone transferred $5000 (the max allowed) each day from my USAA checking account to a bank account in Florida. I didn't discover this until Dec 7th, when I logged into my online USAA account to double check bank account balances, to make sure they tallied with mine. When I noticed the transfers, I immediately called USAA's fraud line, and they froze both my and my wife's online USAA accounts (and the bogus transfer conduit). As it turned out, the crook had logged into my wife's online USAA account, set up a transfer account to this bogus account in Florida, and had labelled the owner as my wife. As such, it was allowed to be a "push/pull" account, meaning he could "pull" transfers from his bogus Florida account (USAA never verified that the bogus account's owner was my wife, which, of course, it wasn't). I still don't know if this was a push, or pull operation -- not that it matters, as the results were the same. Two weeks later, I got a message from the USAA fraud department stating that: "They had discovered no fraud." Period. Huh?!. This meant it had been either me, or my wife, who had sent the $10000 to the bogus account in Florida. They did say that I could call and request a full report on how they arrived at their findings. So, of course, I called -- and was put on hold for 52 minutes. Finally a gruff voice came on, obviously pre briefed on the subject at hand, and told me that USAA doesn't give out reports on cases NOT ruled as fraud! Jeez, this was contrary to what they had said in their message. He did volunteer that, "All traffic related to the transfers was on computers recognized by USAA as mine." End of discourse. A little investigation on my part, apparently a lot more than they did, discovered that the crook had put a spam filter on my gmail account (the one both me and the wife have as primary for USAA email), meaning, I could not get any correspondence from USAA. I hadn't noticed this, because recent USAA emails had only been perfunctory, i.e, not any warnings, like: "New transfer account set up -- was this you?" And, of course, with the spam filter, I wouldn't have -- and didn't -- get any such warnings! A later look in the gmail spam folder, however, showed much of the missing USAA email correspondence. Smart crook. And, how did I realize I was getting blocked from USAA email? When I went to unfreeze my USAA online account, we tried three times to get the one time six digit code sent to my primary email. No luck. But when sent to my secondary email address on file, bingo. That's when I got introduced to spam filters (and that the related folders aren't normally shown, unless requested -- which is why I was in the dark about these missing emails.) But, of course, the crook didn't have a spam filter on his email reader, so he could read all correspondence from USAA, to include the one time six digit code sent when USAA asked if the crook wanted his computer to be recognized as belonging to my wife's USAA online account. Duh. So this is why the USAA fraud department concluded that I or my wife had conducted the transfers! It didn't dawn on them that, as the crook has access to the wife's USAA account, where he could read the primary email contact address --'cause it is NOT XXXXED out -- that any one time security codes sent to that address would and could be read by the crook. Are they phu****** brain dead! Anyway, this has all recently been fired to the top of USAA management (unfortunately, run by all civilians -- the Generals McDermotts and Herres long gone). It will be interesting to hear their response, particularly as I included several references to nearly identical situations to mine -- one resolved when a local investigative TV channel got involved. Sadly, USAA has really gone downhill. They're already paying the Feds $140M in fines, for shoddy security procedures. And the number of complaints you can find online is staggering. I've been a member for 56 years, and it used to feel like a club of officers and senior NCOs. Now, with the Gronkowski commercials, every swinging d*** who had a dishonorably discharged relative can be a member. Sure ain't the same -- with management on par with its new members. Oh, put the "[email protected]" in your address book or contact list. This should eliminate someone putting a spam filter over your USAA email contact address. And, do change that password periodically, and go to MFA sign ins. I never changed my or my wife's passwords -- my bad. And her account was dormant, as she's joint with me on all accounts, so only I needed to log into my account to check things. I certainly now check periodically her account for strange activity.

What's that have to do with a procedure to eliminate unwanted protoplasm?

There's nothing in this remittance charade that dictates whether or not money sent from a bank account is "old" money (i.e., pre 2024) or "new" money (i.e., interest earned post Jan 2024). And, even more, if you add earnings to this account post Jan 2024, these earnings can be either non assessable via the DTA, like gov't pensions -- or assessable, like private pensions. So, you send a chunk of money to Thailand from this account -- from which tranches does this money come from? There certainly aren't any rules regarding this -- at least as of now. So, as part of the whole self-assessment drill, it would seem it's up to you to identify which tranches you tapped for remittance. With good records, you certainly could make sure you're remittances are first tapping the non assessable funds in that bank account -- hey, your call. But, jeez, I can't imagine such a detailed reporting requirement, with all the associated costly manpower, ever occurring. Maybe a random compliance audit here and there. No, just another aspect of the necessary self-assessment aspect of this goat rope. Just be prepared to argue your methodology of identifying tranches for cash flow remitted.

A little common sense would put this ridiculous rumor to rest. Why would any cash flow into Thailand automatically be considered "income," and not just a capital input for, say, Foreign Direct Investment, or for providing for living expenses. If this cash flow came from pre 2024 savings, or from DTA exempted income, it's not assessable income. But nobody's going to parse this cash flow to determine what it is, or isn't. It will be you, the tax resident, to parse this cash flow. And, why in the world -- if RD decided all incoming cash flows were income -- would they tax it at the top marginal tax rate of 35%? Again, common sense says it would climb the laddered tax rate scale, zero, to five percent, etc. Come on, folks -- engage a little logic.

The DTA says Thailand has exclusive taxation rights on your private pension (but the US has secondary rights, due to the saving clause that allows the US to override all aspects of DTA language). So, if your private pension exceeds all those allowances, deductions, 150k freebies offered in a Thai tax return -- then, yeah, you have Thai taxable income, and thus need to file a Thai tax return. But you get a credit for these Thai taxes against your US tax bill; but, as you say, you owe no US taxes. Well, then, the credit is worthless (well, not quite -- you could file an extensive Form 1116, which would allow a carry-over of this credit, should you have future US taxable income.... a lot of work if your future shows no US taxation). Anyway, this is a case where having to pay Thai taxes, and no US taxes -- means you're now in a situation of owing someone taxes (but, without exploring various math scenarios, I really think if you owe no US taxes, because the standard deduction exceeds your adjusted gross income, then you most likely won't meet the Thai taxable income threshold either). As far as someone parsing your Social Security remittances apart from your private pension remittances -- of course this won't, and can't happen -- fungibility of money remittances is a wonderful thing. As said a monotonous amount of time on these threads -- it will all be self-assessment. Keep good records; report what looks correct to you; and give yourself the benefit of the doubt, particularly if you can support a good argument, should it (unlikely) ever come to that. [I give myself a tax credit for Bangkok Bank withheld taxes on my US return. Rules say, if I can get this withholding refunded, I can't get the credit. My excuse, should I ever get a letter audit from the IRS, is that I read on an expat forum that I can't get a tax refund without a TIN; and I can't get a TIN without a work permit. This would be my excuse if ever audited (weak as it may be). Integrity? No tax evasion? Nope -- Thailand keeps the taxes, and the US gives a credit, vice US gets the taxes, and Thailand has to refund their withholding taxes to me. Thus, taxes working where I live.]

List all your bank and IRA/401k balances as of 12/31/2023. This is the amount you can remit to Thailand that will be non assessable, i.e., not reportable, on a Thai tax return -- for ever and ever going forward into 2024 and beyond. Just keep good records, like, say, you open a new bank account in 2024, and fill it with pre 2024 funds, plus you use it for direct deposits of your gov't pensions, and Social Security payments (exempt by DTA). Thus, this new bank account contains only money that is not reportable on a Thai tax return. And this should be the source of your Wise or SWIFT transfers. I mention including your 12/31/23 IRA/401k balance, because of the uniqueness of Thailand's remittance rule, plus the exemption for pre 2024 income. Thus, Thailand says income earned pre 2024 is exempt from their new remittance rule. But money in an IRA pre 2024 has also been earned -- it's just tax deferred until it is payed out. Thus, I would be completely in my rights to tell Thai RD that my IRA funds pre 2024 are not reportable, as they were earned pre 2024. That it's taxable in a later year, when withdrawn -- is neither here nor there (until Thailand drops the remittance malarkey and just looks at taxable worldwide income).

Hear hear.

If you really needed hand holding, which you won't with the professional approach of BoI, Star Visa in CM is on the BoI list of agents. But, you still have to go to Bangkok for the final inkings -- they can't do that for you. Actually, my trip, as I hate traveling, was a surprise joy, as I treated myself to everything five star -- hotel, limo to and from airport, limo to Boi, surf and turf dinners, young... nevermind. But, hopefully the internet will be available for the one year report -- mail would be an ok backup. Star Visa, however, says they can do that report for you, if needed. Which, it probably won't be.

Well, DTAs can be amended with "protocols." Hopefully, one such protocol might be re the UK-Thai DTA, and will finally address private pensions, which the current DTA is silent on. Other protocols might just update DTAs that have grown long in the tooth, and thus have led to misunderstandings. Can't really envision a scenario where an updated DTA would be detrimental to me.... But, who knows...

That's nice. But if you're in Thailand for 180 days or more -- you're a resident for tax purposes. That you don't have a residence status that allows you to get a Thai passport makes no difference to the taxation aspect. Again, if you're here for 180 or more days, you're subject to the DTA and Thai taxation. A quick glance at the OZ-Thai DTA shows a carbon copy of most English speaking countries' DTAs, all based on OECD and UN Model tax treaties. For private pensions: Key to the above, the the phrase: "shall be taxable ONLY in that State." This means exclusive taxation rights. As pointed out by an OZ tax accountant somewhere in all these threads, yes, this means Oz has no taxation rights on these private pensions, only Thailand. That they don't exercise this right -- because it's not remitted -- apparently doesn't negate the exclusivity. And OZ apparently doesn't have something like the saving clause found in the US DTA, which trumps the exclusivity, and allows taxation by the US, in spite of what's declared in the DTA. A good deal, I guess -- if Thai taxation rates are lower than Aussie rates of taxation.