The easiest thing to do is go down to your local tax office sometime in February or early March. Bring all your receipts for income you earned in Thailand during the previous year, along with documentation of any money you transferred into Thailand from overseas. One of the clerks at the tax office will prepare the tax return for you at no cost. All you have to do is sign the form once they’ve completed it. Pay them around ฿35, and they’ll give you a printed photocopy of the completed tax filing. Once you’re in the system, they’ll generally mail you a blank tax form the following year. From then on, you can use your previous year’s filing as a guide and simply fill in the new numbers. Or you can take your documents down to the tax office again the following year, and they will prepare it for you at no cost, just like the previous year. I wouldn’t bother with the online system unless getting down to the tax office is a big inconvenience for you. The online system is all in Thai, and I find it much faster to just fill out the forms by hand and take them down to the tax office. There really isn’t much to it. It takes me about 15 minutes to complete the form myself, and the district tax office is only a five-minute walk from where I live, so it’s no hassle at all. I then attach copies of the receipts/documentation for my income and any money transferred into Thailand during that tax year, take everything to the tax office, and hand it in. They enter the information into the system, and you can pay for another photocopy of the completed filing if you want one. For a single person, generally, you won’t owe any tax if your taxable income is no more than around ฿210,000. If you’re above retirement age, you may qualify for additional exemptions, and being married may provide additional exemptions as well, so your tax-free amount could be much higher. Information about the various tax deductions and exemptions is readily available online in English from various sources. Personally, I don’t see much need for an accountant unless you have a complicated financial or income situation. For a straightforward situation, the process is pretty simple and can be handled yourself.
