Thai gov. to tax (remitted) income from abroad for tax residents starting 2024 - Part I

[Mike Lister]

15 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

I am in Hong Kong with a Thai lady. Instead of handing her cash, I transferred money from my US bank to her Thai bank account.

 

Is that a remittance into Thailand?

 

If I instead had used Western Union to send money to her here in Hong Kong, and then she carried the money into Thailand, would that have been a remittance into Thailand?

A remittance is a funds transfer and vica versa, whether or not it is assessable is another story

[TroubleandGrumpy]

24 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

I am in Hong Kong with a Thai lady. Instead of handing her cash, I transferred money from my US bank to her Thai bank account.

Is that a remittance into Thailand?

If I instead had used Western Union to send money to her here in Hong Kong, and then she carried the money into Thailand, would that have been a remittance into Thailand?

Was that money income or savings - if savings then not taxable. But maybe not taxable anyway even if income - but who is it taxable against.

IMO it is only taxable against the GF/Wife if it is taxable (savings is not) - because she received the money - it was not sent to your own account. 

Is that a gift - it is (up to 20 million baht) if she is a wife (10 million for close family members).

You are in Hong Kong - do not be in Thailand for 179+ days betwen Jan 1 and Dec 31 and you are not a tax resident - no taxes payable from overseas remittances. 

[TroubleandGrumpy]

1 hour ago, 4myr said:

Recalling back to the meeting I tend to agree with you.

 

All tax officers in the meeting were only referring stuff from the Revenue Code, as if an international agreement like a DTA does not have any meaning, even to the lawyer in the room, while it should supersede national law.

 

Unfortunately for any law abiding tax resident, it's easier, cheaper and less frustrating not to escalate to RD headoffice/court, but to use the legit escape routes available in their tax rules, to achieve the same result as applying the DTA.  

And therein lies the rub - TRD is not at all prepared at all to deal with many thousands of claims made under DTAs. IMO their default position for Somchai in the local TRD Office will be to deny and impose income taxes based on the total money advised in the rerturn as remitted into Thailand. I have previously stated what happens if TRD makes an arbitrary decision - you have SFA ability to challenge that - and you must pay whatever Somchai decides within 7 days and (maybe) you will get a refund if you win in the Appeal Tribunal or Court (good luck). 

You can be fully informed and legally represented and argue and fight and complain - but IMO the best strategy is to be informed and avoid if at all possible, interacting with TRD - at least for the next 2-3 years. 

[4myr]

27 minutes ago, TroubleandGrumpy said:

You can be fully informed and legally represented and argue and fight and complain - but IMO the best strategy is to be informed and avoid if at all possible, interacting with TRD - at least for the next 2-3 years. 

Avoidance is I'm afraid not possible if you're a tax resident. However you can bring in money which are exempted in the P161/2566 ruling, e.g. earnings before 2024, or for which you have a tax credit evidence available. 

 

I was watching back a TRD legal expert called Khun Nathanan Junprateepchai talking to the Swiss ambassador that the Swiss pensioners should not worry, as he referred to the Swiss DTA that Swiss pensions will not be taxed in Thailand. Compare that to the position of his colleagues in my local office.

[Rimmer]

Off topic / baiting posts have been removed

[CharlesHolzhauer]

On 4/19/2024 at 11:58 AM, Mike Lister said:

I’ve grown tired of waking up to new abusive posts and PM’s each morning so I’ve decided to withdraw completely from the tax threads and the Simple Tax Guide. The fact is, the satisfaction derived from compiling the guide and helping members is far outweighed by faux challenges, aggravation and abuse. I’ve talked this through with Admin who has very generously proposed alternate solutions but I think mine is the better alternative.

 

By means of this post, I handover responsibility for making any future updates to the tax guide and answering questions, to members @stat @TroubleandGrumpy and @JimGant who appear to think they can do a better job and I feel certain will want to do all they can to help members.

 

I will not be reading PM’s again.

 

I wish you all well.

 

Many of us empathize with your frustration and urge to discontinue this thread—personally, I would have taken that step much sooner. However, I believe relinquishing control of this valuable and informative discussion to these three individuals is misguided. The administrator and you, as the moderator, should seriously consider locking this thread and deleting all content after your resignation post. Let those disruptive individuals start another 'tax guide' or whatever they wish to call it. There are many more who read your contributions and depend on your wisdom. Perhaps, when things have calmed down, you could at least resume reading and responding to personal messages.

Edited April 20 by CharlesHolzhauer
spelling

[Klonko]

1 hour ago, 4myr said:

Avoidance is I'm afraid not possible if you're a tax resident. However you can bring in money which are exempted in the P161/2566 ruling, e.g. earnings before 2024, or for which you have a tax credit evidence available. 

 

I was watching back a TRD legal expert called Khun Nathanan Junprateepchai talking to the Swiss ambassador that the Swiss pensioners should not worry, as he referred to the Swiss DTA that Swiss pensions will not be taxed in Thailand. Compare that to the position of his colleagues in my local office.

Your statement re Swiss pensions is not correct. There are two type of pensions in Switzerland, the federal first pillar pension and  the second pillar pension from employment. If the employer was the state, a public subdivision, or a local authority thereof, the respective second tier pension is taxed in Switzerland and exempt from Thai taxes. All other pensions are not taxed in Switzerland and constitute assessable income if remitted to Thailand.

[Ben Zioner]

15 hours ago, NorthernRyland said:

Exactly my thoughts. It's very interesting to me the amount of people who are so eager to comply with this new law and are hiring lawyers and going to tax offices already. 

Just as those who want the LTR tax exemption to be removed... 

[4myr]

3 minutes ago, Klonko said:

Your statement re Swiss pensions is not correct. There are two type of pensions in Switzerland, the federal first pillar pension and  the second pillar pension from employment. If the employer was the state, a public subdivision, or a local authority thereof, the respective second tier pension is taxed in Switzerland and exempt from Thai taxes. All other pensions are not taxed in Switzerland and constitute assessable income if remitted to Thailand.

you missed my point. I agree with you, in most DTA's only the state funded pensions are exempt

[CharlesHolzhauer]

15 hours ago, NorthernRyland said:

It's very interesting to me the amount of people who are so eager to comply with this new law

It would be interesting to me, as well as to anyone remotely familiar with this subject matter, to know which 'new' law you are referring to.

[Mike Lister]

In December last year, a decision was taken to create a Simple Tax Guide for the benefit of members, its purpose was, and remains today, to provide a knowledge base, on which members could begin to manage their tax affairs in Thailand. The core document was constructed in the following three months and feedback from virtually all quarters was overwhelmingly positive. The document has been viewed more than 80,000 times and over 100 members have been helped directly. By early April, we felt that there was sufficient acceptance of The Guide to where further development of it could be left to members and that I could relinquish my role.

 

In the two weeks since, a number of things happened to make us change our minds. Firstly, the hitherto tightly controlled Simple Tax Guide thread was overrun by posters who ignored the thread rules and tried to derail the topic with unrelated discussions about overseas tax. Secondly, the level of personal attacks and abuse towards me increased substantially, as did attempts by a handful of posters to undermine the Simple Tax Guide and the work to date. Thirdly, it became apparent that no other member was willing to take on the role of updating the guide, as new information emerged.

 

The Simple Tax Guide project remains a forum approved project that is required to be progressed. Consequently, if we are to meet our objectives, it’s now necessary for me to once again assume my previous role of Moderator. The following is the framework in which the subject of tax will be moved forward:

 

1) I will moderate all tax threads, in addition to my other moderation duties, I will not however post in those threads or engage in debate in them, using my Moderator nic.

 

2) I will open a new poster name that I will use to post on subjects of my choice, just as all of you are. In this way, there will be no doubt whatsoever whether any of my comments are being made as a poster or as a Moderator.

 

3) The pinned thread containing the Simple Tax Guide will be unlocked but will be very tightly controlled. The thread is available for members to raise queries about issues in the Simple Tax Guide and to ask questions or seek help, but this will NOT be a debating thread. I will delete unrelated posts, frequently and without warning,so as to keep the thread focussed for new readers.

 

4) This thread, the 8 month old thread on tax, will continue as is, many of the recent posts have been extremely useful and constructive and I very much hope they continue. From time to time, paragraphs/topics that appear to be agreed as fact, albeit perhaps only with a good degree of probability rather than absolute certainty, will be inserted into the Simple Tax Guide and published.

 

5) In keeping with Forum Rules, unnecessarily argumentative or insulting posts will be removed without notice. Derogatory PM’s will result in suspensions.

 

6) If anyone has a concern about any of my actions as a Moderator, I encourage you to report them to Admin.

 

7) Lastly, I would remind everyone that posts that are "deleted" are in fact only hidden from view and that Moderators can still see the entire contents of all threads, even supposed deleted posts.

 

 

[TroubleandGrumpy]

2 hours ago, Mike Lister said:

In December last year, a decision was taken to create a Simple Tax Guide for the benefit of members, its purpose was, and remains today, to provide a knowledge base, on which members could begin to manage their tax affairs in Thailand. The core document was constructed in the following three months and feedback from virtually all quarters was overwhelmingly positive. The document has been viewed more than 80,000 times and over 100 members have been helped directly. By early April, we felt that there was sufficient acceptance of The Guide to where further development of it could be left to members and that I could relinquish my role.

 

In the two weeks since, a number of things happened to make us change our minds. Firstly, the hitherto tightly controlled Simple Tax Guide thread was overrun by posters who ignored the thread rules and tried to derail the topic with unrelated discussions about overseas tax. Secondly, the level of personal attacks and abuse towards me increased substantially, as did attempts by a handful of posters to undermine the Simple Tax Guide and the work to date. Thirdly, it became apparent that no other member was willing to take on the role of updating the guide, as new information emerged.

 

The Simple Tax Guide project remains a forum approved project that is required to be progressed. Consequently, if we are to meet our objectives, it’s now necessary for me to once again assume my previous role of Moderator. The following is the framework in which the subject of tax will be moved forward:

 

1) I will moderate all tax threads, in addition to my other moderation duties, I will not however post in those threads or engage in debate in them, using my Moderator nic.

 

2) I will open a new poster name that I will use to post on subjects of my choice, just as all of you are. In this way, there will be no doubt whatsoever whether any of my comments are being made as a poster or as a Moderator.

 

3) The pinned thread containing the Simple Tax Guide will be unlocked but will be very tightly controlled. The thread is available for members to raise queries about issues in the Simple Tax Guide and to ask questions or seek help, but this will NOT be a debating thread. I will delete unrelated posts, frequently and without warning,so as to keep the thread focussed for new readers.

 

4) This thread, the 8 month old thread on tax, will continue as is, many of the recent posts have been extremely useful and constructive and I very much hope they continue. From time to time, paragraphs/topics that appear to be agreed as fact, albeit perhaps only with a good degree of probability rather than absolute certainty, will be inserted into the Simple Tax Guide and published.

 

5) In keeping with Forum Rules, unnecessarily argumentative or insulting posts will be removed without notice. Derogatory PM’s will result in suspensions.

 

6) If anyone has a concern about any of my actions as a Moderator, I encourage you to report them to Admin.

 

7) Lastly, I would remind everyone that posts that are "deleted" are in fact only hidden from view and that Moderators can still see the entire contents of all threads, even supposed deleted posts.

 

 

Good Luck with that. 

[Mike Lister]

If anyone disagrees with what is written in the current draft version of the Simple Tax Guide or believes it can be improved upon, I will be very pleased to receive sensible comments/alternate wording, on a numbered para by para basis, provided they are fairly brief and very focussed.  Any constructive challenge to the current contents are welcome but must be accompanied with some forum of supportive reference and not solely be opinion or personal logic. Anyone wishing to make such a challenge may do so here in this thread, via PM, or, in the Simple Tax Guide thread. If you have a concern where something is written that cannot be explicitly proven by quoting official sources, that may be because the statement results from discussions between members and their local TRD office. I would caution against arguing that the opposite of explicit statements are not valid, simply because they are implicit rather than explicit.

[Dogmatix]

7 hours ago, 4myr said:

Recalling back to the meeting I tend to agree with you.

 

All tax officers in the meeting were only referring stuff from the Revenue Code, as if an international agreement like a DTA does not have any meaning, even to the lawyer in the room, while it should supersede national law.

 

Unfortunately for any law abiding tax resident, it's easier, cheaper and less frustrating not to escalate to RD headoffice/court, but to use the legit escape routes available in their tax rules, to achieve the same result as applying the DTA.  

 

I think that is going to be a big problem. If even the RD legal officers at the provincial level have not bothered to study the DTAs and have no opinions on how to apply them, what hope is that an RD officer in Nakorn Nowhere is going to be familiar with the details of the 60 or so DTAs and will suddenly know how to apply them, having never had to before. In his article when P. 161/2566 first came out Prof Kitiphong, a leading tax lawyer and former chairman of Baker McKenzie pointed out that the fact that the RC has never been amended to reflect the existence of DTAs and that it thus doesn't confirm that DTAs are even applicable to PIT could be a problem in implementing this arguably unlawful RD order.  There is just one ruling on record relating to use of DTAs vis a vis PIT which relates to income from temporary employment abroad which apparently came about because the RD was reluctant to accept the tax credit from the tax paid overseas.  There are no rulings on DTAs applied to capital gains or other investment income or pensions or anything else.  There is no regulation on which method will be applied to DTAs - 1) tax everything in full and let the taxpayer claim a refund from the other state; 2) don't tax anything that has been subjected to tax in the other state;  3) demand the difference between Thai tax and the tax rate already paid in the other state, if the Thai rate is higher.  There are indications the RD intends to use method 3 but there are no regulations to that effect.  RD officers could easily choose to demand full payment of Thai tax and let the taxpayer claim a refund of tax paid.  That saves them the trouble of studying the DTAs and being accused of not collecting enough tax and many will be scared of being accused of taking a bribe to reduce a tax bill. They will not get into trouble for charging too much. 

 

The RD officer in the interview with the guy from the Swiss Embassy said they will not be issuing any regulations about DTAs and hinted it will be up to individual officers to decide how to apply them.  Since it is not a law and is probably unlawful anyway, it would be difficult to issue regulations to support it. If the order gets successfully challenged in the Tax Court, the RD would be digging itself into a deeper hole by issuing unlawful regulations to support a non-binding, unlawful order. 

[Dogmatix]

3 hours ago, Mike Lister said:

In December last year, a decision was taken to create a Simple Tax Guide for the benefit of members, its purpose was, and remains today, to provide a knowledge base, on which members could begin to manage their tax affairs in Thailand. The core document was constructed in the following three months and feedback from virtually all quarters was overwhelmingly positive. The document has been viewed more than 80,000 times and over 100 members have been helped directly. By early April, we felt that there was sufficient acceptance of The Guide to where further development of it could be left to members and that I could relinquish my role.

 

In the two weeks since, a number of things happened to make us change our minds. Firstly, the hitherto tightly controlled Simple Tax Guide thread was overrun by posters who ignored the thread rules and tried to derail the topic with unrelated discussions about overseas tax. Secondly, the level of personal attacks and abuse towards me increased substantially, as did attempts by a handful of posters to undermine the Simple Tax Guide and the work to date. Thirdly, it became apparent that no other member was willing to take on the role of updating the guide, as new information emerged.

 

The Simple Tax Guide project remains a forum approved project that is required to be progressed. Consequently, if we are to meet our objectives, it’s now necessary for me to once again assume my previous role of Moderator. The following is the framework in which the subject of tax will be moved forward:

 

1) I will moderate all tax threads, in addition to my other moderation duties, I will not however post in those threads or engage in debate in them, using my Moderator nic.

 

2) I will open a new poster name that I will use to post on subjects of my choice, just as all of you are. In this way, there will be no doubt whatsoever whether any of my comments are being made as a poster or as a Moderator.

 

3) The pinned thread containing the Simple Tax Guide will be unlocked but will be very tightly controlled. The thread is available for members to raise queries about issues in the Simple Tax Guide and to ask questions or seek help, but this will NOT be a debating thread. I will delete unrelated posts, frequently and without warning,so as to keep the thread focussed for new readers.

 

4) This thread, the 8 month old thread on tax, will continue as is, many of the recent posts have been extremely useful and constructive and I very much hope they continue. From time to time, paragraphs/topics that appear to be agreed as fact, albeit perhaps only with a good degree of probability rather than absolute certainty, will be inserted into the Simple Tax Guide and published.

 

5) In keeping with Forum Rules, unnecessarily argumentative or insulting posts will be removed without notice. Derogatory PM’s will result in suspensions.

 

6) If anyone has a concern about any of my actions as a Moderator, I encourage you to report them to Admin.

 

7) Lastly, I would remind everyone that posts that are "deleted" are in fact only hidden from view and that Moderators can still see the entire contents of all threads, even supposed deleted posts.

 

 

 

I thought you said you were not going to have anything to do with the tax guide or any tax threads only a few days ago.

[Mike Lister]

9 minutes ago, Dogmatix said:

 

I thought you said you were not going to have anything to do with the tax guide or any tax threads only a few days ago.

That's correct, in the hope that somebody suitable would step up and volunteer to take over responsibility for the Simple Guide. But nobody did, which left us with no other realistic solution. Let me repeat, I am not going to have anything to do with this thread, other than to ensure postings follow forum rules, I am not going to contribute other than to verify new information for the Simple Guide so you are all on your own. The Simple Guide thread however is a different story.

[topt]

5 hours ago, 4myr said:

I was watching back a TRD legal expert called Khun Nathanan Junprateepchai talking to the Swiss ambassador that the Swiss pensioners should not worry, as he referred to the Swiss DTA that Swiss pensions will not be taxed in Thailand. Compare that to the position of his colleagues in my local office.

There was a separate thread on this at the time of its airing.

I am not Swiss but personally I found it almost a complete waste of time to watch due to the vagueness.

[Dogmatix]

7 hours ago, Danderman123 said:

I am in Hong Kong with a Thai lady. Instead of handing her cash, I transferred money from my US bank to her Thai bank account.

 

Is that a remittance into Thailand?

 

If I instead had used Western Union to send money to her here in Hong Kong, and then she carried the money into Thailand, would that have been a remittance into Thailand?

 

Yes, your remittance to her Thai bank is a remittance and is assessable income for her, assuming you are not married.  There is an RD case about exactly this. A Thai woman received remittances from her foreign boyfriend abroad and it was deemed taxable income because they were not married. If married the RD would have accepted that the remittances were gifts from a spouse which is tax exempt up to 20 million baht a year. 

 

If you gave her the money in cash and she hand carried it back to Thailand, it is also assessable income.  However, if you were able to get Thai baht in HK, there is no way it could be detected, unless it were more than the amount of cash allowed to be carried out of HK or the amount allowed to be carried into Thailand and she was caught by customs at either end.  I think the HK export allowance is the lower amount and is about US$10,000 now (previously no limit).  If she give her USD or other foreign currency, she will have to show her ID card to change it at a license forex dealer, although I doubt that goes to the RD.  She could also change it with an unlicensed forex dealer without ID or with a friend who wants to travel overseas.  USD cash no longer seems useful in the US as everyone has gone cashless now and $100 bills have always been treated with suspicion. 

[Dogmatix]

3 minutes ago, topt said:

There was a separate thread on this at the time of its airing.

I am not Swiss but personally I found it almost a complete waste of time to watch due to the vagueness.

 

I agree the interview with RD official Nathanan Junprateepchaiat the Swiss embassy raised many more questions than it answered.  He did confirm that gifts from overseas to spouses in Thailand were exempt up to 20 mil but he also contradicted himself by saying that gifts to children were not exempt having just said that gifts to direct ascendant and descendant relatives were OK. What is a direct descendant relative, if not your child?  It was just a superficial attempt at PR with a embassy but when you analyze it, he was so confused and vague that it was useless. And that is a senior official the RD assigned as a spokesman on the subject. What hope for RD officials dealing with tax returns from expats living in Nakorn Nowhere.

[Dogmatix]

21 minutes ago, Mike Lister said:

That's correct, in the hope that somebody suitable would step up and volunteer to take over responsibility for the Simple Guide. But nobody did, which left us with no other realistic solution. Let me repeat, I am not going to have anything to do with this thread, other than to ensure postings follow forum rules, I am not going to contribute other than to verify new information for the Simple Guide so you are all on your own. The Simple Guide thread however is a different story.

 

I understand your logic and respect your decision but I am still personally of the opinion that an informal, unauthoritative tax guide is not something that AN should be doing. I am not surprised no one stepped into the breach.  If comments are tightly controlled, it will not generate meaningful traffic anyway. 

[Mike Lister]

1 hour ago, Dogmatix said:

 

I understand your logic and respect your decision but I am still personally of the opinion that an informal, unauthoritative tax guide is not something that AN should be doing. I am not surprised no one stepped into the breach.  If comments are tightly controlled, it will not generate meaningful traffic anyway. 

I don't intend for this thread to be tightly controlled whatsoever, I intend for it to have ultra light moderation, as long as everyone is sensible and reasonable, which has not always been the case.

 

I intend for the Simple Tax Guide thread to be reserved for specific things, comments and suggestions relating to the guide and members queries, mostly, if they wish to post them there, (those with simpler needs have done so in the past). That thread will only be tightly moderated if the need arises. In the past, some posters tried to use it as their personal platform to vent all manner of different things and to stage debates and derail and undermine its purpose. It is intended to be a platform for known and assumed fact, mostly. I would much rather see this thread be used for the bulk and core of all tax debates and that my role is passive, used only to extract agreed facts/assumed facts. If you guys can continue in the same way that you have recently, minus the outburst and abuse from a few posters, that will be perfect as far as I am concerned.  

 

As for whether we should be doing this or not: you are well educated, you also have a good understanding of the infrastructure and leaglese/government speak, you are also no stranger to the world of tax and the Revenue. Large numbers of members do not have even a small fraction of your knowledge and understanding. Many are basic income pensioners, some are insecure financially and in other ways, many have never had anything to do with tax in their lives. Of the 100 or so people that have PM'd me or have come to the previous thread for help, none were even close to your profile. Those are the people we are trying to assist in the first instance and towards whom the Tax Guide is primarily targeted, not the wealthy types who transfer millions or who are worried about Capital Gains on investment portfolio's or LTV's. As we go further up the wealth and comprehension scale, the need changes and the less the guide is needed, by the time we get to your level the guide is not even remotely relevant, but you are not the target market, we're focussed on the needs of the people on the other end of the scale. The point after all of that is, many of our members, don't have any other source of information and hardly anyone they can ask or trust, we've seen ample evidence of that.

 

[JimGant]

1 hour ago, Dogmatix said:

Yes, your remittance to her Thai bank is a remittance and is assessable income for her,

Assessable income for her? Did she provide a product or service for you, for which you're paying her for? If not, it's not income for her. And if the remittance to her account -- on its eventual way to your hands -- was from your savings account, and you're a Thai tax resident, it's not assessable income for you either. That her bank account functioned as an intermediary step to getting the money into your hands -- nothing taxable, for both parties, in that transaction.

 

1 hour ago, Dogmatix said:

If you gave her the money in cash and she hand carried it back to Thailand, it is also assessable income. 

 Why? Again, if that cash was from a savings accounts (or a pre 2024 financial account), she is just an intermediary (like Wise) -- and once that cash has been handed back to you in Thailand, or deposited into your Thai bank account -- it hasn't lost its savings identity, and is thus not assessable income.

 

 

[Yumthai]

3 hours ago, Dogmatix said:

A Thai woman received remittances from her foreign boyfriend abroad and it was deemed taxable income because they were not married.

How unlucky... I'm pretty sure the thousands of Thai "girlfriends" who receive multiple remittances from their sponsor boyfriends do not pay any single satang of tax on that money.

 

3 hours ago, Dogmatix said:

I think the HK export allowance is the lower amount and is about US$10,000 now (previously no limit).

No need to declare up to HKD120,000 (US$15K) in/out HK.

[JimGant]

4 hours ago, Dogmatix said:

A Thai woman received remittances from her foreign boyfriend abroad and it was deemed taxable income because they were not married.

Ah, yes. A Thai girlfriend receiving a remittance from a foreign boyfriend is being paid an income for certain services rendered. And income is taxable. But a wife, receiving the same amount of money, is not collecting income, since she's not providing a service -- but an obligation.

[AreYouGerman]

Why are all the people in here so serious. Just follow the law and you're good to go!

[stat]

On 4/19/2024 at 6:58 AM, Mike Lister said:

I’ve grown tired of waking up to new abusive posts and PM’s each morning so I’ve decided to withdraw completely from the tax threads and the Simple Tax Guide. The fact is, the satisfaction derived from compiling the guide and helping members is far outweighed by faux challenges, aggravation and abuse. I’ve talked this through with Admin who has very generously proposed alternate solutions but I think mine is the better alternative.

 

By means of this post, I handover responsibility for making any future updates to the tax guide and answering questions, to members @stat @TroubleandGrumpy and @JimGant who appear to think they can do a better job and I feel certain will want to do all they can to help members.

 

I will not be reading PM’s again.

 

I wish you all well.

 

Really good news!

[stat]

On 4/19/2024 at 3:20 PM, TroubleandGrumpy said:

Yes indeed - my read is the same outcome - Thaksin will get rid of the LTR exemption as soon as possible.

 

It is also my read that the LTR exemption would be viewed as being in breach of the international obligations Thailand has signed up to, one of them being this change regarding taxaing overseas incomes. Thailand is obliged under those obligations to stop taxation evasion and illegal money laundering.  Lets face it, the LTR could be easily bought by a person who illegal wishes to avoid taxation on international money transfers.  

Sorry have to disagree here, there is no "international obligation" to tax your tax subjects. It is neither tax evasion nor money laundering if you are a tax resident of Thailand and pay no taxes because TH does not want to tax it. Same as in the UK, CH, PH, etc.

Why should it be illegal to avoid taxation on money transfer? There is a legal exception being the LTR Visa, nothing illegal there.

[CharlesHolzhauer]

12 hours ago, Dogmatix said:

If comments are tightly controlled, it will not generate meaningful traffic anyway.

To foster meaningful discussions concerning to the subject matter in this forum, it's essential to control disruptive comments. It's become apparent that some participants either fail to read or comprehend, or they harbor dubious intentions, which only adds to the tumult.

And regarding your comment in a previous post, "I thought you said you were not going to have [...]," it was uncalled for and seemed designed to embarrass. Expressing such sentiments via Personal Messages would have been more appropriate. An apology, would reflect positively on your character.

[Mike Teavee]

15 hours ago, Dogmatix said:

Yes, your remittance to her Thai bank is a remittance and is assessable income for her, assuming you are not married.  There is an RD case about exactly this. A Thai woman received remittances from her foreign boyfriend abroad and it was deemed taxable income because they were not married. If married the RD would have accepted that the remittances were gifts from a spouse which is tax exempt up to 20 million baht a year. 

Interesting, I read somewhere that you could claim to have a "Moral Obligation" to provide support to your Thai Partner (Not Spouse) but am guessing what is classified as a "Moral Obligation" would be something like having a Child together & not supporting her because it was you who asked her to stop working 12 hour days, 6 days a week so you could spend time together. 

 

Just in case, I'll tweak my plans...

• Remit a total of 210K for her (This would be her 60K tax free allowance + 150K which is taxed at nil rate) & she can start paying 1/2 the rent, utilities, groceries etc... 
• Remit a total of 235K to me (Same 210K + an extra 25K for purchasing Health Insurance)
• Remit Birthday/Xmas gifts (thinking 100K each) which I've a strong feeling she'll be using to take me on holiday for my Birthday/Xmas presents 😉

Rest of my spends will come from savings already in Thailand so should be good for a couple of years until I can either get an LTR or confirmation that remitting my pension (starts in 2026) will not be taxed, either way I'll spend < 180 days in Thailand in 2026 so have an opportunity to top up my Thai Savings accounts as needed. 

[paddypower]

thanks. but this year we will have close to 2MM in income. so yes, I can plan to minimize the tax rate. by income splitting..

there is a secondary reason why I'm looking to contact a Danish pensioner. It is to find out are Danish citizens entitled to the govt pensions, or not. I cant get an answer from any Danish websites. I do know that you do not qualify for  the pensions, if you you do not have Danish citizenship. are there any Danes out there, please?