Trading international shares & ETF from a Thai share portfolio

[CanNot]

Im (German citizen) currently working in Thailand and want to open a local share portfolio. I plan to trade international shares as well as international ETF like MSCI World etc. mainly for long term savings.

 

• Is it possible to trade those kind of things with a normal trading account on one of the big banks like Bangkok Bank, SCB etc?
• How much is the tax for the capital gains & dividends
• Do I need to put my earnings in the tax return and what happens when I stop working here. (In Germany they get automatically cut by the bank.)
• Anything i missed?

 

Thanks you in advanced for your help.

 

[wordchild]

You missed doing a search on this forum: really pretty much everything you ask has produced ( I would guess) hundreds of posts on this forum over recent years.

i would add just one thing , often repeated on here, just because you live somewhere it does not mean that you have to locate your wealth there. In fact, there are considerable  advantages, for many expats, in maintaining a portfolio in a different location both from your country of origin and the country in which you are currently based. 

[gamb00ler]

I find using the TV search function frustrating.

 

I use Google and restrict the search to the TV forums by adding site:forum.thaivisa.com/topic/ to my search terms.

 

For example to find an answer to your question I used this google query without the "

"trade etf account site:forum.thaivisa.com/topic/"

[Oxx]

(1) You can't open a trading account with a bank - only a brokerage.  (Though some banks own brokerages, the brokerages are run as completely separate operations and you can't open an account through a bank branch.)

 

(2) Why would you want the account to be in Thailand? Wouldn't you be better off using a brokerage account in Germany? Just transfer money periodically (e.g. annually) to save on transaction costs.

[wordchild]

3 hours ago, Oxx said:

(1) You can't open a trading account with a bank - only a brokerage.  (Though some banks own brokerages, the brokerages are run as completely separate operations and you can't open an account through a bank branch.)

 

(2) Why would you want the account to be in Thailand? Wouldn't you be better off using a brokerage account in Germany? Just transfer money periodically (e.g. annually) to save on transaction costs.

or Singapore or Luxembourg

[Oxx]

53 minutes ago, wordchild said:

or Singapore or Luxembourg

 

Because charges are likely to be higher in Singapore or Luxembourg?

[CanNot]

4 hours ago, Oxx said:

(2) Why would you want the account to be in Thailand? Wouldn't you be better off using a brokerage account in Germany? Just transfer money periodically (e.g. annually) to save on transaction costs.

Thanks for your answer. I heard that taxes here in Thailand are much lower. Actually I found that capital gains on shares are non taxed and dividends just with 10%. (https://www.set.or.th/en/regulations/tax/tax_p1.html). In Germany its 25%.

 

 

[CanNot]

12 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

For example to find an answer to your question I used this google query without the "

"trade etf account site:forum.thaivisa.com/topic/"

Thank you, this is really helpful.

[wordchild]

1 hour ago, CanNot said:

Thanks for your answer. I heard that taxes here in Thailand are much lower. Actually I found that capital gains on shares are non taxed and dividends just with 10%. (https://www.set.or.th/en/regulations/tax/tax_p1.html). In Germany its 25%.

 

 

The tax concession applies to SET (Thai market) listed shares not to non Thai shares unless those shares are held offshore from Thailand: some Thai brokers offer offshore share trading accounts for foreign shares, commissions are higher though 

[wordchild]

2 hours ago, Oxx said:

 

Because charges are likely to be higher in Singapore or Luxembourg?

Saxo in Singapore offers reasonable rates so does OCBC for favoured customers. I believe Internaxx in Lux is not bad.

[CanNot]

On 6/14/2019 at 2:27 PM, wordchild said:

The tax concession applies to SET (Thai market) listed shares not to non Thai shares unless those shares are held offshore from Thailand: some Thai brokers offer offshore share trading accounts for foreign shares, commissions are higher though 

Oh - so opening a local (Thai) broker account isn't any beneficial then since it get taxed on the source? I wonder how it is with ETFs like MSCI World where the shares are all over the countries.

[wordchild]

14 hours ago, CanNot said:

Oh - so opening a local (Thai) broker account isn't any beneficial then since it get taxed on the source? I wonder how it is with ETFs like MSCI World where the shares are all over the countries.

there can be some benefit in using a Thai broker if you are going to trade Thai shares ; if you mainly are looking at non Thai assets then i would question why use a Thai broker? 

Also if you are resident in Thailand there is no (Thai) tax to pay on any income earned outside Thailand, including investment income, as long as it is held offshore for a period and only brought into Thailand in the year following the year in which the income (or capital gain) was earned. ie earn dividend income during 2019, hold the income in, say a brokerage account , until Jan 1 2020 then bring the funds into Thailand=no tax to pay and no obligation to declare it.  

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by wordchild