JimGant

I'm not. With wrong information being put out by some Thai law firms, and other organizations, what's to be believed? Example from an unnamed law firm: That's complete baloney. Thai RD is not interested in income that is not assessable, and thus not taxable. This would include all non remitted income; income from pre 2024; and income exempt per DTA. Plus, there's no place on a tax return to provide non assessable income -- so if you don't owe taxes, are they asking you to walk into a RD office with an Excel spreadsheet.... Ludicrous. Again, Thai RD is not interested in my US govt pension, exclusively taxable by the US. And they're not interested in my VA pension, which is not even taxable by home country -- so how could I provide documentation that taxes were paid on that income? They may be confusing some reports that, income taxed in home country is completely exempt from Thai taxes, if you show the home country tax return. This has nothing to do with a DTA, however; just a nice possibility to ease all this tax mess. Anyway, too much disinformation making things confusing for the tax situation.

Yes. The only snag, should you be called in to explain the sources of your remittances, is if you opened a new bank account post Jan 1 2024, and in this account all your post Jan 1 2024 monies were deposited, and these are the monies being remitted to Thailand. For appearance sake, you need to have transferred enough money from your pre 2024 account to your post 2023 account -- up to the 175k GBP grandfathered amount -- to cover remittances to Thailand. Yes, with the fungibility of money, you shouldn't need to play this game. But, should you get a bean counting nerd in RD on your case, this would give cover. But if you don't go this route, I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Ah, that's what it was. I was sitting in the dental office when a gurney wheeled out with what I perceived as a corpse. My immediate question to myself: Did he get a discount?

I'm just curious -- what are the sources of your remitted income to Thailand? If largely current year private pensions, then, yes, assessable income. But not assessable are govt pensions and social security, from current or past years; any and all monies from a financial account established pre 2024, where the balance on 31 Dec 2023 exceeds any and all monies remitted; and IRA Required Minimum Distributions, and other distributions, since, if you're taking RMDs, your IRA contributions were well before 31 Dec 2023. So, not sure where your worries are coming from -- unless most of your remittances are current year private pensions. Otherwise, doubtful you have any Thai taxable income. Worried about bad guys (or bad wives) getting sensitive data? Your information is never on review, unless you get a tax compliance audit (unlikely, unless you're remitting tons of money, and not filing a tax return). And even here, you can redact all your information on the supporting 1099s, except payer, payee, and amounts. Relax.

But of course. The bank clerk will sit down with you and divide the $15000 into four piles. The first is from your latest private pension check, say $2500, so it's assessable income. The second, say $5000, is from your govt pension, thus it is not assessable, per DTA. The third, say $5000, is from a savings account that was closed on 31 Dec 2023 -- thus this is money grandfathered, and thus not assessable. And the last $2500 is from rental receipts from a house in your home country. Now, home country gets primary taxation rights on this, but Thailand has secondary rights, per most DTAs, so it is assessable income ('tho Thailand will have to apply a credit of home country tax against its Thai tax). So, you have a total of $5000 (180000 baht) of assessable income. Now the law says you must file a Thai tax return for assessable income over 120000 (single, 220000 married). Stupid law, since if you're over 65, you won't have any taxable income until assessable income exceeds 500000. So you won't owe any tax. And there's no fine or foul if you don't owe tax. So ask yourself -- why file? Anyway, back to the bank. Obviously, this scenario is absurd. As it would be for all cash flows -- SWIFT, Wise, etc. So, it's "up to you" (famous phrase of Alfred E. Somchai) to self-assess your remitted cash flows as to whether or not they're savings or income. And if the latter, is that income assessable, or not. Just keep good records, including rationale for judgement calls (like using FIFO), in case you're amongst the 1% called in for a compliance audit. Way too much over-thinking on this matter.

Of course they have the right to tax foreign income, if the tax treaty allows. And these same treaties prevent double taxation, through exclusivity or by tax credits. But, yeah, they don't have the right to tax savings -- and there's no plan to do so. The rumor that all remittances into Thailand will be subject to taxation is pure baloney. Unless it's a direct deposit of a taxable foreign income, like a private pension, then it's up to you to parse what's income and what's savings, in that cash flow of fungible money into Thailand. The banks certainly can't determine what is and what isn't income. Nor can RD. So it's up to you to determine whether or not you have a Thai tax obligation. For many of us, already paying our home country taxes on worldwide income, our total tax bill between home country and Thailand probably won't change -- with, now, Thailand finally getting some tax revenue, and the home country losing same tax revenue, by having to grant a credit. Ho hum. Certainly it wouldn't be cost effective for RD to man up to check all tax situations of foreigners. In fact, it may make sense to go with what we've already heard, namely: "Pay tax in your home country, no need to file Thai tax return." But, just to make it scary for tax cheats, set up random tax compliance audits. And, of course, if you're not paying tax to your home country, now you have the opportunity to pay someone something. Sounds good to me.

Bingo! And right in bed with Mike Lister.

Shouldn't be advised!?. You're kidding. Folks reading these tax threads certainly are looking for advise. The waters are still so muddy on all this new tax rumor that it's impossible to have a definitive thread on what's what -- and to "lock" a thread to make it definitive, by disallowing further argument, is ridiculous. Anyway, in a situation like, do I file 'cause my assessable income exceeds 120k, and the law says so -- or do I not, 'cause I have not taxable income and there's no penalty for not filing -- is a question begging for advice. At least a "pros" and "con" discussion of this is warranted. Without such, all these tax threads, spewing forth much rumor and speculation, are pure crap.

The official reporting threshold is having 120k (220 married) of assessable income. But, for someone over 65, with a TEDA of 500k, you have no taxable income until assessable income exceeds 500k. Thus, with assessable income up to 500k, there is no tax due. And, as you said: "There is no penalty for not filing a return, when no tax is due." So, now that you're no longer an employee of AN, and thus have no further 'tow the legal line' responsibility to AN -- are you now recommending that common sense says: Don't waste your time filing a Thai tax return if you have no taxable income, thus no taxes owed, thus no possible fines or penalties?

Yeah, my dog-eared Receipt of Notification is from 2016, and doesn't have my address on it. I guess I could update it online, with the online TM30 system. Is that system now working ok?

So you'll only need to get one Tricare letter -- the one you get in the year of your five-year update -- since it will reflect that you've had coverage for the previous six years.

Never dipping below 100k in a bank account used for health self-insuring -- might be interesting to 100% prove. Probably asking only for end-of-year statements would be the solution.

But if you don't qualify, rationalizing that other visa options are better -- should make you feel better about your lack of assets.

Just have good records of all your financial balances on 31 Dec 2023. This is the amount of non assessable income you can bring into Thailand going forward, to be joined with any subsequent non assessable income, like govt pensions exempted by DTA. The fungibility of money is your friend.

Just like govt pensions, VA disability payments are exclusively taxable by the US. Meaning, even tho' the US chooses not to tax such payments, Thailand doesn't have secondary taxation rights on such payments. Thus, not assessable income for Thai tax purposes, per the DTA.

Yes, but Thai tax receipts would be net (via credit) of any tax paid to the country where the property is located. The following from the US technical explanation; but it's pretty much standard language in all the treaties that follow the OECD Model: So, Thailand has secondary taxation rights. Just how you'd treat this on a Thai tax return is an interesting question, since there currently are no lines for tax credits... Of course if your situs country doesn't tax you, Thailand gets to keep the whole enchilada, since there are no tax credits to net out. That's why having secondary taxation rights might pay off in some situations.

You'll always pay tax to the US, or at least have to file a tax return -- because of the so-called "saving clause" in the DTA, which allows the US to tax all your worldwide income irrespective of what the DTA says. This is not as onerous as it sounds, because the DTA does prevent double taxation. But it does mean, if Thailand can't tax it because of the DTA, or won't tax it, because it is not remitted -- then the US taxes it -- and keeps the whole kit and caboodle, since there's no Thai offsetting tax credit. Conversely, if per DTA, Thailand has exclusive, or at least primary taxation rights -- and they implement their taxation authority -- then they keep the whole kit and caboodle -- and your US taxes are reduced by the Thai tax credit on that remitted income. Thus, for Yanks, your total tax bill between both countries probably won't change a bit -- unless Thai effective tax rates on subject income exceed that of the US. In that case, you pay full fare to the US Treasury, and pay Thailand whatever net taxes remain after subtracting out the US tax credit. I can't see that happening to me, because even if I cashed out a huge chunk of my IRA, all that money was pre-2024 income -- and thus not assessable for Thai tax purposes. All my other income is govt pensions, and thus exempt. But, I've got an LTR visa, so I'm protected from this goat rope. However, my wife isn't -- so need to keep an eye open on her situation, when I kick.

Sub-para b in the actual treaty is short on explanation, as are most of the Articles in the treaty. That's why they wrote the "technical explanation," to better explain matters, like taxation of dual nationals, which they explain quite clearly -- and clearly refute your understanding of the situation. In case you're not familiar with this technical explanation, here's the link: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/thaitech.pdf With many Yanks married to dual citizens, it's important that their wives clearly understand that the US has exclusive taxation rights on both survivor Social Security payments and survivor gov't pension payments going to these widows. One more briefing item on your death instructions.

Only if they were not dual citizens. Yes, if my wife weren't a dual citizen, her survivor pension off my Air Force pension would be primarily taxed in Thailand. But her US citizenship retains primary taxation rights by the US of her survivor pension. "Should you be reading the convention differently I suggest that you do a close reading of the relevant sections I posted earlier in this thread." Is that close enough?

Is she a dual US/Thai citizen? Then, taking a little liberty with the Thai/US technical explanation, which explains that a private pension paid to a US survivor is treated the same as if paid to the primary: Nothing similar in the govt pension section -- but believe this to be an obvious oversight. Thus, my survivor Air Force pension to my dual citizen wife should be treated the same as for me, i.e., taxable only by the US. Anyway, that's the guidance I've given her. Unlikely that would ever be an item the RD would discuss with her. On a related note -- the wife has two pension checks paid by the US Govt, namely, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). These are for the 35 years she flew with PanAm and United, both of whom declared bankruptcy and dumped their pensions on the PBGC. It would be easy for her to wave these pensions checks as "US Govt paid pensions." Well, yeah -- but the fine print in the DTA says, "Pensions paid for service with the govt." So, guidance here is: These pensions are subject to Thai taxation.

Yeah, after subtracting out the 350k baht exemption, then the 150k freebie up front -- and there is no taxable income left -- why file a tax return? Sure, there's some nonsense about having over 120k baht in assessable income, you need to file a return. Forget it. No fine or foul, as no tax owed. I will assume the accountant's "taxable threshold" meant assessable income minus allowances -- and not the arbitrary, and ridiculous, 120k marker.

No. You don't file a tax return that includes non assessable income. This might be income excluded via a DTA, like US govt pensions. Or income excluded by a Royal Decree, like that under a LTR visa. Thai tax returns have no lines on which to put income not subject to taxation. And, as Mike said: "And currently there is no facility to declare exempt income." And, if you figure the cost/reward for ever requesting such information -- doubtful it will ever occur.

Nope. Only assessable income remitted may have to be declared -- and only then if you're required to file a tax return. And, yes, my US Social Security is exempt from Thai taxation, per DTA. And, of course, there would be no tax credit for Social Security, since the Thais aren't taxing it.

Just a reminder, in the unlikely event you're not aware -- Tricare, and other similar gov't health policies, *are* acceptable for an LTR visa. I had to get one of those throwaway polices from LMG for my OA visa, as Tricare wasn't, of course, one of the 12 acceptable Thai health policies. Thus, one more nice feature of an LTR visa.

How much to home country for income generated there?