New Thailand Elite Visa packages from September 15th ?

[K2938]

8 hours ago, redwood1 said:

O-Boy  The Elite sellers were sure lucky lucky lucky with their timing.....Just perfect timing.....

A little too perfect....

Since you do not need to go ahead with your Elite visa if you do not want to, your conspiracy theory does not really work.  Any time before payment you can withdraw your application.

[redwood1]

30 minutes ago, K2938 said:

Since you do not need to go ahead with your Elite visa if you do not want to, your conspiracy theory does not really work.  Any time before payment you can withdraw your application.

Yes you are correct....

They knew some people would not go through with the visa...

But most people will likely follow through because the visa already was set in motion....

Edited September 23, 2023 by redwood1

[El Matador]

I guess Thai Elite agents had no clue about future laws. But for sure, they knew the future Thai Elite would be bad. So they promoted heavily the old Thai Elite visa with ads. I saw plenty of them on Google.

But they will need to clarify the tax situation ASAP. They created something completely in the grey area.

[Happy happy]

So sorry if this has been asked already above.

It is:

1.Can someone with a retirement O visa (800,000 in bank method) change it to a Elite 5 year Visa?

2. And if so, is the holder of such Elite Visa exempt from income brought in from overseas?

[K2938]

1 hour ago, Happy happy said:

So sorry if this has been asked already above.

It is:

1.Can someone with a retirement O visa (800,000 in bank method) change it to a Elite 5 year Visa?

2. And if so, is the holder of such Elite Visa exempt from income brought in from overseas?

1 - yes, if you apply, get approved (which most people do) and pay the sizeable Elite visa fee

2 - depends on the as yet unpublished details of the new regulations from Jan 1, 2024; based on what has so far been published no

[sampson]

There has been a rise in digital nomads setting up businesses in Dubai, some US states (as a none US citizen) and a few other countries then living in Thailand tax free on elite visas.  This setup was promoted in various groups online. The grey area I guess was they weren't supposed to be working but the nature of the work meant if they kept their mouth shut they were OK.  The devil will be in the details but sounds like with the double tax treaties in place, most won't caught up in this but those taking advantage of the previously lax system will.

 

The Elite visa was probably too cheap to truly serve it's purpose.  Once you throw in all the agents, visa runs and general messing about, it wasn't that much more expensive go Elite as long as you could front the cash. 

 

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

18 minutes ago, sampson said:

There has been a rise in digital nomads setting up businesses in Dubai, some US states (as a none US citizen) and a few other countries then living in Thailand tax free on elite visas.  This setup was promoted in various groups online. The grey area I guess was they weren't supposed to be working but the nature of the work meant if they kept their mouth shut they were OK.  The devil will be in the details but sounds like with the double tax treaties in place, most won't caught up in this but those taking advantage of the previously lax system will.

 

I think the issue is going to be where the incoming transfer of funds came from.  Is it a country where it's likely no tax was paid? if it is the tax people here may want their pound of flesh.

 

There is no way they are going to be happy with a Digital Nomad working here, billing his work from a tax haven tax free and then transferring that money into Thailand.  Currently, you can be tax resident here and transfer that money for last year on 1st January this year and no tax is payable.  I am fairly sure this is the loophole they want to close.

[noobexpat]

2 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

I am fairly sure this is the loophole they want to close.

No, its for thai nationals who generate income/profit offshore then disguise it as capital and defer its transfer into thailand.

 

They have no interest in DN's as they are not taking resources out of thailand and its economy, they are bringing resources in. And its negligible anyway. 

 

Forget about all this silly chat about taxing expats pensions etc too.

 

[JBChiangRai]

15 minutes ago, noobexpat said:

No, its for thai nationals who generate income/profit offshore then disguise it as capital and defer its transfer into thailand.

 

They have no interest in DN's as they are not taking resources out of thailand and its economy, they are bringing resources in. And its negligible anyway. 

 

Forget about all this silly chat about taxing expats pensions etc too.

 

I agree DM's are not who they are after.  

[noobexpat]

3 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

I agree DM's are not who they are after.  

But thats what you said above. Ok its good you change your mind so quick! 

[JBChiangRai]

Just now, noobexpat said:

But thats what you said above. Ok its good you change your mind so quick! 

I gave DM's as an example.  I believe they are wanting to close the deferred remittance loophole and I said that in one of the first few posts when this hit the press last week.

 

I gave an example of how the Thai owner of a Thai company could use his own consultancy company in the UK to siphon off all the profit from Thailand, he then invoices personally for consultancy to his co. in the UK the same amount, and 1st January following remits the whole sum to himself personally.  No tax paid by Thai company, no tax paid by UK company, no tax paid by Thai individual - all completely legal.  

 

What they do will be impossible to make work, but it gives them the right to challenge the Thai individual on arrival of overseas funds to prove tax was paid.  They are likely to apply it to all nationalities if funds arriving from a tax haven and the sum is over a certain amount if they are suspicious.

[noobexpat]

2 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

I gave DM's as an example.  I believe they are wanting to close the deferred remittance loophole and I said that in one of the first few posts when this hit the press last week.

 

I gave an example of how the Thai owner of a Thai company could use his own consultancy company in the UK to siphon off all the profit from Thailand, he then invoices personally for consultancy to his co. in the UK the same amount, and 1st January following remits the whole sum to himself personally.  No tax paid by Thai company, no tax paid by UK company, no tax paid by Thai individual - all completely legal.  

 

What they do will be impossible to make work, but it gives them the right to challenge the Thai individual on arrival of overseas funds to prove tax was paid.  They are likely to apply it to all nationalities if funds arriving from a tax haven and the sum is over a certain amount if they are suspicious.

In said example, he can't be a director of his uk company because you have to be resident. 

 

[JBChiangRai]

25 minutes ago, noobexpat said:

In said example, he can't be a director of his uk company because you have to be resident. 

 

Not true if it’s LLP status

[noobexpat]

1 hour ago, JBChiangRai said:

Not true if it’s LLP status

Then thats not a company, thats a partnership, which means he's self employed for tax purposes ...so self assessment is needed and income tax due on the earnings.

[JBChiangRai]

2 hours ago, noobexpat said:

In said example, he can't be a director of his uk company because you have to be resident. 

 

Not true.

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

29 minutes ago, noobexpat said:

Then thats not a company, thats a partnership, which means he's self employed for tax purposes ...so self assessment is needed and income tax due on the earnings.

There is no UK tax because he’s tax resident in Thailand and the company made no profit.

 

His tax liability is in Thailand and there is none because it’s remitted in year following earning.

[sampson]

4 hours ago, noobexpat said:

In said example, he can't be a director of his uk company because you have to be resident. 

 

Anybody of any nationality can be a director of a UK Ltd company and they can be tax resident wherever they want.  The only requirement at all is that it has a UK address

Edited September 25, 2023 by sampson

[noobexpat]

2 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

Not true.

 

 

 

Yes, silly me. 

I understand your example. Cheers.

 

[Alldar]

I have a question about payment for the Elite visa. How did you pay for the visa? I have both Wise account and Bangkok bank account but I am currently outside Thailand.

 

Option 1

Paying with Wise - how? I was checking that it is not possible to pay by debit card, because the maximum payment limit is not high enough. If I would transfer from Wise directly to their Thai bank account, there is no option to add any payment identifier (the reference is only visible in an e-mail, it is not visible in their bank).

 

Option 2

Transfer money to my Bangkok bank and transfer from there. However, I was reading sometime ago that for payments above 50k scan of the face / biometrics details are needed - does anyone know if this is now enabled? As I am outside Thailand it would be a problem. Also I am not sure if there is a limit for the transactions.

 

I hope it is fine to ask in this topic and not to create a new one.

[Pib]

14 minutes ago, Alldar said:

Option 2

Transfer money to my Bangkok bank and transfer from there. However, I was reading sometime  ago that for payments above 50k scan of the face / biometrics details are needed - does anyone know if this is now enabled? As I am outside Thailand it would be a problem. Also I am not sure if there is a limit for the transactions.

 

Yes...enabled since around 1 July. 

 

You would probably be safer by just biting the bullet on this particular funds transfer and doing a SWIFT transfer.

 

In fact, when you do a BIG amount transfer using Wise their ever increasing fee (i.e., higher the fee the bigger the transfer amount) can make it more expensive than using a SWIFT from your home country bank when doing an "exchange rate and fees" cost analysis...that is, seeing whether using Wise or home country bank SWIFT results in the most baht being received.   A lot depends on just how much you are sending.

 

IMPORTANT: if using SWIFT do not, repeat, do not allow if you can the sending bank to convert to baht on their end although they will probably offer a no-fee transfer if you allow them to convert because their exchange rate will be significantly below the Thai bank "TT Buying Rate" which is used to exchange incoming foreign currency SWIFT transfers.  That method of transfer will really cost you more (and put more profit in the home country's bank's pocket) from the poor exchange.  Note I said above  "...if you can..." since to ensure an exact amount arrives to pay the Elite price you will need to ask your bank how they can ensure this as it basically a bill which must be paid to the exact amount....they have ways in how the code the transfer to make this happen...coding that says if a receiving fee must be paid do not deduct it from the amount being sent but send them a bill for that fee instead. 

 

In your cost analysis, Thai banks use their posted daily  "TT Buying Rate" to exchange incoming transfers...and the "receiving" fee most Thai banks use is 0.25% (max Bt200 min, Bt500 max) receiving fee.

 

 

 

 

[Alldar]

5 minutes ago, Pib said:

Yes...enabled since around 1 July. 

 

You would probably be safer by just biting the bullet on this particular funds transfer and doing a SWIFT transfer.

 

In fact, when you do a BIG amount transfer using Wise their ever increasing fee (i.e., higher the fee the bigger the transfer amount) can make it more expensive than using a SWIFT from your home country bank when doing an "exchange rate and fees" cost analysis...that is, seeing whether using Wise or home country bank SWIFT results in the most baht being received.

 

Well, that is certainly bad news. Was it enabled for foreigners as well? My friend in Thailand was saying that it is probably not enabled for foreigners. I guess I will try to contact the bank to confirm.

 

Regarding SWIFT transfer, I wanted to avoid it for the same reasons as you said. I don't know how I would send the exact amount to the target bank. Did anyone tried to use the SWIFT transfer to Thailand using Wise? Is it possible?

 

And as far as I know Wise's fee is not increasing, percentage is fixed- about 0.63% as far as I remember. If payment would be send through a SWIFT, it would be recalculated by exchange rate of the receiving or sending bank, and this exchange rate difference was always higher than Wise's fee when I was checking.

 

Thank you very much for your answer, but it is not a good news for me. ????

[mokwit]

29 minutes ago, Pib said:

IMPORTANT: if using SWIFT do not, repeat, do not allow if you can the sending bank to convert to baht on their end

from memory the SWIFT instruction they must write/follow is "remit as currency".

 

 

[BritTim]

On 9/22/2023 at 1:36 PM, Pla Sai said:

Hello,

 

I applied for Elite in the beginning of August to avoid new price hike and got my approval today so around 1.5 months for approval.

 

I've been reading information they provided in approval letter and it says some nationalities need tourist visa prior to arriving to Thailand to get visa affixed at the airport - anyone knows anything about it? Sent email to their support to ask but thought I ask here as well.

 

Those who cannot enter Thailand visa exempt may have trouble traveling without a tourist visa. If you have an appointment to get the Elite visa affixed to your passport on entry at Suvarnabhumi, I would imagine this would suffice with most airlines. However, airlines unfamiliar with the Thailand Elite process might deny you boarding without a visa.

[Pib]

2 minutes ago, Alldar said:

Well, that is certainly bad news. Was it enabled for foreigners as well? My friend in Thailand was saying that it is probably not enabled for foreigners. I guess I will try to contact the bank to confirm.

 

Regarding SWIFT transfer, I wanted to avoid it for the same reasons as you said. I don't know how I would send the exact amount to the target bank. Did anyone tried to use the SWIFT transfer to Thailand using Wise? Is it possible?

 

And as far as I know Wise's fee is not increasing, percentage is fixed- about 0.63% as far as I remember. If payment would be send through a SWIFT, it would be recalculated by exchange rate of the receiving or sending bank, and this exchange rate difference was always higher than Wise's fee when I was checking.

 

Thank you very much for your answer, but it is not a good news for me. ????

Yes...it was enabled for foreigners also.  I have Bangkok Bank and Krungsri Bank accts and it was enabled.  I've saw some posts from a couple months ago where some farangs say their Thai bank is still having problems in getting non-Thai citizen enrolled in the bank's face recognition program (a Thai ID card or farang passport issue) but that does not mean those farangs can still transfer amounts over Bt50K. 

 

What I mean by increasing fee using a 0.63% Wise fee example is if your transfer say 500,000 that equates to a fee of 3,150.....but 0.63% of 1,000,000 is a 6,300 fee.  But if doing a bank SWIFT transfer the fee is the same regardless of transfer amount.  

 

Yea, be sure to do a cost analysis which includes exchange rate "and fees."   

 

And as mentioned earlier your home country bank can code a SWIFT transfer to ensure a specific amount arrives.  It called coding the transfer fee option as SHA, BEN, or OUR.  You would need to use OUR. 

 

See below website that explains SHA, BEN, OUR fee coding for SWIFT transfers from a "receiver's perspective" who is expecting an exact amount as it's common in some SWIFT transfers that the sender needs an exact amount to arrive without the worry of fees taking a slice.  Kinda like paying a bill where an exact amount must arrive.   You might have to initiate the SWIFT transfer via in-person/telephone to ensure the correct coding is used if initiating the transfer online does not show such an option.  

 

https://help.qonto.com/en/articles/4359547-how-much-does-receiving-a-swift-transfer-cost

 

 

Quote

 

When sending you a SWIFT transfer, the issuer (your client or partner) has three options: OUR, BEN or SHA.

 

The chosen option is indicated on the proof of transfer (MT103), provided by the issuing bank.

 

The SHA (shared) option: the fees are shared between the beneficiary and the sender of the transfer. The fees from the issuing bank are paid by the person sending the transfer. The intermediary and beneficiary bank fees are deducted from the transfer amount (and thus charged to the beneficiary).

 

The BEN (beneficiary) option: The transfer beneficiary pays all the fixed fees, which are deducted from the transfer amount.

 

The OUR option: this is the only option that ensures you pay zero fees, as they are all taken care of by the party sending the transfer.

 

???? We recommend you to ask your client or partner to select the OUR option to ensure that you receive the amount you are expecting.
Also, it’s better to specify this in your business contracts !

 

 

[BritTim]

On 9/23/2023 at 11:15 AM, redwood1 said:

Was not the last day for the old school Elite visas September 15 and was not the new Thai tax on money announced on September 18th......

 

Were not the new Elite visas raised in price between 50-500%.....Which they knew would cause loads of sales before September 15th....... Which just happen to be right before September 18th announcment which they knew would be very bad for sales...

 

O-Boy  The Elite sellers were sure lucky lucky lucky with their timing.....Just perfect timing.....

A little too perfect....

The timing was not perfect. Those for whom the tax changes would affect their decision will simply bail and fail to pay the membership fee. Few prodded into action by the announced price increases will have paid before the September 18 announcement. The tax changes should have been announced in November if the plan was to boost Elite memberships.

[Pib]

5 minutes ago, mokwit said:

from memory the SWIFT instruction they must write/follow is "remit as currency".

It will vary from bank to bank...and the wording will vary from bank to bank.  Usually if initiating online the bank will offer the fee options where you "click" to select a certain option. 

[BritTim]

On 9/24/2023 at 6:51 PM, Happy happy said:

So sorry if this has been asked already above.

It is:

1.Can someone with a retirement O visa (800,000 in bank method) change it to a Elite 5 year Visa?

2. And if so, is the holder of such Elite Visa exempt from income brought in from overseas?

In the past (and I think still now) you typically needed to do a border bounce by air if currently on a Non Immigrant permission to stay to kill it off. The Elite visa is then affixed at the airport.

[BritTim]

39 minutes ago, Alldar said:

Well, that is certainly bad news. Was it enabled for foreigners as well? My friend in Thailand was saying that it is probably not enabled for foreigners. I guess I will try to contact the bank to confirm.

 

Regarding SWIFT transfer, I wanted to avoid it for the same reasons as you said. I don't know how I would send the exact amount to the target bank. Did anyone tried to use the SWIFT transfer to Thailand using Wise? Is it possible?

 

And as far as I know Wise's fee is not increasing, percentage is fixed- about 0.63% as far as I remember. If payment would be send through a SWIFT, it would be recalculated by exchange rate of the receiving or sending bank, and this exchange rate difference was always higher than Wise's fee when I was checking.

 

Thank you very much for your answer, but it is not a good news for me. ????

Wise allows you to send the money as a Swift transfer (though their transaction fees are higher that way). I believe, as usual with Wise, that allows you to specify the exact amount in Thai baht.

[Alldar]

18 minutes ago, Pib said:

What I mean by increasing fee using a 0.63% Wise fee example is if your transfer say 500,000 that equates to a fee of 3,150.....but 0.63% of 1,000,000 is a 6,300 fee.  But if doing a bank SWIFT transfer the fee is the same regardless of transfer amount.  

 

Yea, be sure to do a cost analysis which includes exchange rate "and fees."   

Yes but Wise is using real mid-market rate, so besides the fee which is completely transparent and it is a fixed percentage there is no other markup for the transfer. With SWIFT transfer there is a fee for the transfer (which is fixed amount) and second "hidden fee" which is worse exchange rate. The exchange rate difference was always more than the Wise's fee (0.63%) therefore using SWIFT transfer was never a better option.

 

For me the priority is to pay this somehow. I will probably contact both Wise and BKK bank and will see.

[Pib]

Just to add some more info regarding a SWIFT payment to ensure an exact amount arrives below is how Wise describes how you should pay Wise/fund the Wise transfer "if using  SWIFT to send money to Wise to fund a transfer"....Wise says to be sure to use the OUR option.  Basically Wise is giving instructions from a "receiver's" standpoint.

 

https://wise.com/help/articles/2553074/paying-by-swift

Quote

 

Fees for SWIFT payments

• Your bank will likely charge a fee to make a SWIFT transfer to Wise. 

• When the money is in transit, correspondent banks in between may also deduct their handling fees. Your bank should be able to advise what those would be.

• If money is sent directly to your balance there’s nothing extra you need to do - we’ll deposit whatever we receive into your account.

• Try to make sure your bank will cover any fees associated with the payment so that we can receive the full amount for your transfer. This is known as an "OUR" SWIFT transfer.

 

•