JimGant

Oh my. My bank account for Immigration, thus single owner, has my wife as co-signator, meaning only my name is indicated as account owner, but her signature is visible thru UV light. As co-signator, she can have her own ATM card, and she can march into the bank with my passbook and withdraw as much as she likes. Upon my death, this power, like power of attorney, probably dies. But since no one in the bank would know I'm dead (why would they, since no one, including my wife, is required to tell them -- and the police certainly aren't going to collect my passbook from my wife), she could still functionally withdraw. Or she could go online, and do a transfer from my account to hers. Illegal? Maybe -- but since she's the sole beneficiary in my Will of that bank account, and is the executor -- who's the aggrieved party to file a complaint? The only aggrieved parties are the slimy lawyers denied their exorbitant probate fees. And the bank manager's liability? Absolutely none, as she has no liability unless notified of the death, and then the obligation to freeze the account sets in. Yes, the lawyer mafia, greedy for probate fees, have gotten a lot of bank managers scared about releasing funds without a probate release, including, sadly, Amphur Wills, which in the old days were the poor man's escape from lawyer fees, in preparation and probate. Fortunately, my small town bank manager has told us, with a wink and a nod, to just come and collect the deceased's bank assets -- she apparently doesn't care too much for lawyers either. No, this subject pops up on this forum frequently, including the chance that misinformed bank managers might even freeze joint accounts. My bank manager has said this is absolutely not the case, so I'll probably not clean that account out, should the wife die. But, maybe next year a new bank manager...... Hey, the high cost of probate, and the time consuming execution of it, certainly makes one look for workarounds. And if your Will has your wife/partner as sole beneficiary, and you have no liabilities -- why wouldn't you use the workaround I just described? Just who is going to press charges -- the lawyer mafia? That would be interesting, and ludicrous.

Essentially, yes. The formula for integrating foreign tax credits into your US tax return is interesting, if you like math riddles. Check out the instructions for Form 1116. But, if your Thai taxes on this IRA are less than the US taxes on same amount, your total tax bill between what you pay Thailand and what you pay the US will be the same as if you never filed with Thailand. And, as I think you alluded to, I have no problems paying Thailand and not the US my tax dollars/baht, as I'd rather pay to fix pot holes here than in Iowa. Timing is where it could be tricky, as you need to have your Thai tax return results (for credit purposes) prior to filing your US tax return. But an extension with the IRS is no big deal, as neither are amended returns.

Yeah, but nice to know what the treaties say is their right to enforce.

I'm not declaring anything - I'm reading from the Technical Explanation of the Thai-US tax treaty: I you want to see a test case on how a US expat's IRA is handled, read the following link. It is based on the US-Swiss DTA, which, like the Thai-US DTA, is based on the OECD and UN Model tax treaties. Thus, considerable similarity. Just substitute "Thailand" for "Switzerland" as you read. The main difference, of course, is that Switzerland taxes income, whether remitted or not. Same as most civilized countries. https://hodgen.com/ira-distribution-to-u-s-citizen-living-in-switzerland-which-country-taxes-it/

Sorry. All that money in your 401k or IRA is tax deferred income (unless you padded it with some after tax income, in which case Form 8606 would apply). Thus, when you take your annual Required Minimum Distribution or any other distributions, that now becomes taxable income in the year it is taken. So, nope, can't say it was income prior to Jan 1, 2024. And, the DTA says Thailand has exclusive taxation rights on this income (if remitted). And the saving clause says you also have to declare this income on your US tax return. However, the Thai taxes would be a credit against US taxes owed. The guy who agreed to this on the DTA was an idiot, as here you have years and years of tax deferred income, whereby the US collected no taxes. And now when paid out, and you're a resident of Thailand, Thailand gets first collection rights on this money, and the US maybe no money, if the Thai credits cover the US tax. Wonderful planning, US.

Then quit making it sound like all remittances have tax consequences.

None of these transfers are necessarily taxable events. What's the source and character of these transfers? If made this year from a pre 2024 financial account, not a taxable event. Take out a loan from a bank and send it for a condo purchase -- not a taxable event. Put X amount of your DTA-excluded gov't pension in a bank account, and send no more than X amount to Thailand - not a taxable event (you'll never be asked, but if so, you can self-parse this treaty-excluded X amount from other fungible funds in the account - just don't send more than the X amount). I would even go as far as saying, debit card purchases from this bank account that don't exceed X amount would survive any scrutiny (which, again, I doubt Thai RD will challenge your word, or records of amounts in bank that are treaty exempt). From the drift of this thread, it sounds like folks believe any money you send to Thailand would be taxable, or even have some tax withheld upon arrival. Nuts. Thailand is not going to kill off Foreign Direct Investment by questioning the character of all monies remitted into Thailand. This, if done, will be done later, probably by self-assessment -- the only method that is realistic.

Indeed. Dandruffman123 must be joshing.

We're forgetting that the new rule applies to remitted INCOME, not remitted cash flow. A credit card cash flow to the Thai merchant I buy from is just a loan from the bank that issued me the credit card. It's not remitted income. This is in the same category as, I borrow $100,000 from my mother, which I then remit to Thailand. Whether I gave my mom a note, or she considered it a gift, is neither here nor there. It is definitely NOT income, and therefore would not show up on my US tax return, nor would it be considered income for Thai purposes. How I pay the bank back, or how I pay Mom back, does not redefine this loan as income. Do you really think the Thais are going to view all remittances into Thailand as income? Of course not. And they're not going to be able to differentiate remittances between income and capital. As said too many times on these threads, common sense dictates that what you report as assessable income on your Thai tax return will be determined only by you. Random compliance audits, like we do in the US, may be in the future. But even if hit by one of them, if you filter all your monies through an offshore or home country bank, the fungibility of such money, and some good record keeping, should shoo away the revenuers.

Indeed (unless the applicable DTA says the home country has exclusive taxation rights on that income).

Because it was money taxable exclusively by your home country -- and/or it was money earned in 2022, or earlier? Sorry to question your methodology, but a few folks have indicated that they believe that "all money in bank accounts pre Jan 1st, 2024" is exempt from the new rules. It is -- but not from the old rule, meaning 2023 earnings remitted in 2023 are subject to filing a Thai tax return in 2024 -- if not exempt via DTA.

Taxable, of course, is the remaining assessable income after subtractions of allowances, deductions, and the 150k freebie. Similar to the US definition of taxable income (TI), which is adjusted gross income (assessable income), less the standard deduction. No TI, no tax filing required. But what is your "excluded assessable" category?

Well, the definitions do kinda muddy things. But for most of us reading this, we're concerned about foreign derived income, and what part of that is assessable, and thus subject to a Thai tax filing. So, we're mainly interested in income excluded by a DTA and income not remitted to Thailand. Both of these are "other-than-assessable" (how's that?) incomes and therefore are not includable on a tax return. But, don't follow the rule on remittance timing, you'll stumble into the 'assessable' bracket. Bottom line: Your Thai tax return, if you don't work here, could easily be empty of numbers -- all legal, if you're familiar with your country's DTA -- and you're familiar with remittance timing. And you certainly wouldn't provide any "other-than-assessable" numbers to Thai RD, since they're probably not interested in numbers that don't provide taxes -- plus, more pragmatically, there are no lines on which to provide such information.

There's no place on a Thai tax return to include income that is not assessable income. Thus, you would not include monies excluded by your country's tax treaty with Thailand. And monies remitted in a later year than year earned (under the old rules). Or monies remitted from a bank account funded pre Jan 1, 2024 (under the new rules). Thus, for most of us retirees, very little, if any, assessable income to include on a tax return, except maybe interest from your Thai bank account. So, if you have no taxable income (assessable income minus allowances, deductions, 150k freebie), no reason to file a tax return, as there's no penalty for not filing, if no taxes owed. As an aside, because of the weird remittance rule for what's assessable income -- it's best to filter all remittances to Thailand through a home country or off shore bank account. And one established and funded pre Jan 1, 2024, if possible. Then, have all your wire transfers come from this account, backfilling it with only treaty exempt income, like gov't pensions for most of us. Thus, if this new rule takes effect, you're covered under the pre 2024 income being exempt. And should post 2024 additions to this bank account -- like reinvested interest -- come into question (not likely) -- your answer is you draw from the oldest deposits first (FIFO). Nothing likely to challenge this.

Well, granted. But the preponderance of readers here have the King's English as their primary language, with, of course, the exception of we Americans, whose language is anyone's guess.

Well, the DTAs have a separate Article dealing with "Non-Discrimination" -- here from the US DTA: Could be interesting if push came to shove on such matters. The US State Dept takes treaty matters very seriously, so I would hope our Embassy (and others) would take any treaty violation seriously. But, I guess it would all depend on the golfing weather at the time.....

Come on, Mike. This rental question has already been explored vis a vis the US and the UK DTAs. Thailand is secondary tax collector, meaning you pay taxes primarily to your country where rental property exists, and those taxes are used as credits against any Thai tax assessed. Please don't scimp on the full picture of how expat landlords will be treated here in Thailand.

The US-Thai DTA uses the same language, i.e., "may be taxed" without the "ONLY" qualifier. And, the US DTA has a technical explanation that probably would apply to the UK-Thai DTA: And, the primary taxing country gets to keep all the taxes collected, while the secondary taxing country (in this case, Thailand) has to give a credit for those taxes paid in the situs country. From a practical standpoint, I'd do a back of the matchbook evaluation of what, if any, taxes I'd owe Thailand, after factoring in the credit. And if none, I wouldn't even bother to include this rental income on any Thai tax return I filed, particularly since they haven't gotten around to providing a place on their tax returns to show credits. No evasion here, of course -- just a practical solution.

Yeah, Yanks can be bloody arrogant. I apologize. Aussies have been our finest allies, sticking with us through our worst follies, like Vietnam. OK, enough thread creep. Sorry.

Hey, it takes a lot of money to defend the free world. We're still paying for kicking out the Japanese from Guadalcanal, so that Oz remained free, and allowed our Marines to have the best liberty of their lives in Melbourne. My grandfather died telling Oz stories, before he had to head out for Cape Gloucester.

It's your gross rent receipts, less expenses, that tax agreements are concerned with as far as income is determined. That your UK personal allowance -- or for Yanks, the standard deduction -- means you pay zero taxes in your home country. That's nice -- but completely divorced of the income figure you declare to Thailand. Here's something from the US Thai technical explanation. Chew on it for awhile: Probably most DTAs have something similar, since they're all based on the OECD and UN models. But, what's important about giving taxation rights to both contracting countries -- with one designated as having primary right to tax, like here, with the situs country having the primary right -- is that, if the primary taxing country doesn't tax subject income (due, here, to the UK personal allowance), then the secondary country has the right to tax same income -- and doesn't have to offset it by any tax credits, because there aren't any tax credits coming from the UK, in this example. So, declare your net rental income to Thailand, if remitted -- and if exceeds TEDA and becomes taxable income, well, pay your taxes and have a beer. This, actually, is what OECD current doctrine addresses, namely, model tax agreements don't just address avoidance of double taxation -- they address avoidance of NO taxation. So, if you've got remitted rental net income receipts to Thailand, looks like the rules say, file a Thai tax return (if higher than 120k baht). Home country, as situs state and primary taxing authority, gets to keep all their tax receipts. But has to issue a tax credit to Thailand for these collected taxes. Net result: Pay taxes only to home country; or pay full tax bill to home country, plus some extra tax to Thailand, should the tax credits not subtract out all taxes owed to Thailand. Fun, huh.

I guess I got that from ACA: Actually, reading further down on this excellent ACA article, you'll find my biggest dislike of the Patriot Act, namely, making expats with US bank accounts restricted from many banking activities.

Granted. But, ignore this rule at no peril. Up to you.

The FinCEN 114 FBAR form takes about five minutes to fill out, even with single and joint accounts, using last year's refillable PDF form. Not sure why some get so worked up over this requirement. Granted, it's a stupid requirement -- FBARS's $10000 threshold should be acclimated with FATCA's $50000 threshold -- and apparently there are efforts to do that. Meanwhile, I'll leave my 800k in its bank account, and bring more over -- as it's becoming clearer that my money in the States, slated by POD for my worthless niece and nephew, would be better served left to my wife's Thai nieces and nephews, who have become very helpful. Opportunity cost of having my money in a Thai bank account? One day's movement in my stocks corrects for that. Nope. A lot easier in the long term by getting my money over here soonest, to be left to Thai relatives -- than retaining a lawyer in the States for final settlement -- since I can't POD my Thai relatives.

Who the hell is going to "test" that for exemption or assessability from my latest Wise transfer? Impossible.