Yumthai

Some people don't like to bend, others bend even further. To each their own taste.

You can certainly figure out that some people either do not have 800K to uselessly lock in a Thai bank account or can just make this money work at much better rate abroad.

It would just become another business for agents.

Thank you for your kind warning, it will be taken with the highest consideration.

Sure. My point is Financial Institutions may incur legal penalties for non-compliance with the CRS regulations, individuals not. Individuals won't face legal penalties either, other than possibly account restrictions/closure, for not willing to file the CRS form presented by their banks. Therefore, individuals are not required to directly/strictly comply with CRS.

Please elaborate. CRS rules apply to FIs. FIs (may) try to make their customers comply with what CRS require them. Individuals are free to comply or not (with/without consequences) with their FIs policy/requirements.

And they rightly do as CRS rules only concern financial institutions not individuals.

OK so just be coherent. Why bothering to file a tax return as you're already being rogue with Immigration and you agree yourself that tax enforcement is non-existent?

... sleep well with an extension of stay stamped in your passport illegally obtained through an agent. It seems you're rolling the dice as well.

This won't stop tomorrow, and the few worried foreigners running to pay tax will hardly compensate the tax loss.

Most probably because these countries use true residence-based taxation, along with efficient tax department, where all foreign sourced income has to be declared. Thailand is also categorized as residence-based taxation but with an important twist: "only if the income is remitted to Thailand". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation

What's the point of stricter reporting if it's not to eventually collect more tax? DTA's certainly do not cover all remitted money and countries. You're confused.

Nobody has a clue about what's gonna happen forward. You keep repeating, with few other legalists and doomsters, that Thailand will start strict tax collection is inevitable. Fair enough. Now, just accept that others think that such tax crackdowns somehow won't happen (for many valid reasons) and have made their decisions accordingly.

Maybe because non tax residents with local income should declare and pay tax too.

Ditto. From now on everyone please do not be contrarian with CM. Health matters first.

You need to take into account not only foreigner residents but also Thai citizens. They may hold tax residences + bank accounts abroad (especially dual nationals) as well, this number could be quite substantial and outweigh foreigners. I've spent extensive time in various TRD offices for corporate tax purposes. 1 on 10 was usually busy with paper stacks all over her desk, the others I'm sure you can imagine how busy they were.

I agree that with CRS implementation TRD will get yearly financial information in an automatic way they didn't get previously. This is possibly millions of records containing FI customers ID, year-end balances and interests/dividends earned information. The primarily purpose of this data collection is to be exchanged with CRS co-signatory jurisdictions. What might TRD further do with that? First identify and extract Thai tax residents (need Immigration data), then compare year to year accounts balances (more or less money provide no clue on transactions), then decide who they want to audit? This is potentially hundreds of thousands audits.

Feel free to ask them then, but you already know the answer ranging from "CRS what?" and blank looks.

Sure they can ask tons of foreign docs, and we can provide genuine or not, that they are eventually unable to check. This question you may ask to OECD. CRS is just a tool among others that cannot in itself combat exhaustively tax evasion.

As you've already been told, CRS reporting yearly provide to each jurisdiction you are tax resident all declared offshore accounts including year-end balances + interests/dividends received. With these little information it's up to your tax jurisdiction(s) to trigger or not a tax audit.

Thailand will just have to follow CRS rules that apply to financial institutions not individuals. They will gather and send CRS reporting containing whatever data sent by Thai FIs that nobody else could check other than Thailand.

Governments made the rules!

Why and how would Thailand combat tax avoidance which is perfectly legal thanks to rules they made on purpose?

It is. Do your homework before clowning further yourself.

The physical location of an individual is totally irrelevant while remitting (wire transfer) from overseas into Thailand. What matters is tax residence status.