Free event aims to shed light on the new tax rules for foreign income brought into Thailand

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

22 minutes ago, BenStark said:

 

Sorry mate, I thought we had a sensible conversation, but it seems I was wrong.

 

How many % of the expats in Thailand is American, and how many % of those are entitled to those pensions, compared to the whole expat community?

 

 

Best I can say is many thousands of Americans here in those kinds of situations. Apart from government/military pensions, Social Security alone is a standard retirement benefit for most older Americans.

 

Data from a 2019 news report re Thai retirement extensions, which wouldn't count older Americans here on marriage visas/extensions:

 

 

A 12% U.S. share back then of almost 80,000 retirement visas/extensions in 2018 would have been almost 10,000 Americans.

 

Broader data from a 2018 Immigration report:

 

 

 

Edited January 30 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Mike Lister]

16 hours ago, smedly said:

how can they shed light on something the revenue department haven't explained 

The Revenue, Smedly, has already explained all they need to, only one small change has been made to one paragraph of the tax law whilst everything else remains as it has in the past for many many years. Hopefully, the seminar will help explain to anyone who is sitting on the fence, waiting for some huge announcement from the Revenue of massive significance to be made, that nothing is coming!  It was our job to understand the tax rules in the past and to file tax returns when appropriate. We didn't do that because we didn't think we had to, now it's becoming apparent to everyone that we do. That hasn't changed, it's still our job to do those things so everyone needs to get on with it and do it. An excerpt from another post follows:

 

"Assessable income is any income that was remitted to Thailand and was earned after 1 January 2024, whilst tax resident and which is not exempted by the DTA between Thailand and your home country, or by the Thai RD. 

 

The Revenue Department may make some announcements in the coming months or there again they may not. I am hard pressed to understand exactly what announcements might be made or why. We have been told that new tax filing forms are being prepared, presumably they are being redesigned but I don't even know this for certain. It is not impossible to think that we might arrive at 31 December 2024 knowing nothing more than we do today, in respect of Thai tax. If that happens, anyone who has been tax resident here during this year, will be required to file a tax return, as long as they have assessable income that exceeds the threshold of 120,000. Assessable income is defined above. It will be YOUR responsibility to understand your country's DTA with Thailand and determine what constitutes assessable income. DTA's are available to download and are linked in the OP.

 

 

 

 

 

[soalbundy]

14 hours ago, BritScot said:

If your embassy is correct then every expat is going to get a massive tax bill and its very simple because minimum 400,000baht ~ 800,000baht has to be brought in to Thailand for a retierment visa every year. The Thai government is not your friend. They want every satang they can squeeze out of you. Only when thousands of expats leave will it become another misunderstanding. 

Hardly massive, I worked out that if I bring in 76,000 every month then with all the deductions I would have to pay 13,750 per year, works out to 1,145 per month, that isn't going to break the bank, it's important to stay in the 5% bracket.

[Expat68]

The tax issue will be exactly the same as immigration, some offices one rule another a different one. Just my honest opinion 

[Thingamabob]

There are no new tax regulations, only an apparent move by the Thai govt to better enforce legislation which already exists. 

[Mike Lister]

2 minutes ago, Thingamabob said:

There are no new tax regulations, only an apparent move by the Thai govt to better enforce legislation which already exists. 

There is one change that sparked all this discussion, and that is that income that is remitted to Thailand, is taxable here, regardless of the year it was earned. Previously the law was that it was only taxable if remitted in the same year it was earned.

[TigerandDog]

I had a lengthy telephone conversation last week with a tax accountant in Australia who specialises in the Australian tax treaties.

 

There was some good news for some and also bad news for some.

 

#1.  The first thing he pointed out was that expat Australians permanently living in Thailand (viz. more than 180 days in Thailand, therefore making them tax residents of Thailand not Australia) who have been filing annual non-resident tax returns in Australia and being slugged 32% tax are being taxed illegally by the ATO under the terms of  the Tax Treaty and are eligible to claim a full refund of all the tax paid for those tax returns. He also advised that they should have an Australian tax accountant submit a $0.00 tax return and declare it as a FINAL tax return so they no longer need to submit any future tax returns in Australia, until such time as they become an Australian tax resident again. He cited as an example the case of a client that had been submitting non resident returns in Oz for many years. He made representations on behalf of the client and was able to have $900k refunded to the client by the ATO.

 

#2. Under the tax treaty if we are deemed to be a tax resident of Thailand, then the ATO cannot legally tax you.

 

#3. As a tax resident of Thailand, especially now with Thailand banks bringing their systems into the 21st century and exchanging data with all the countries that are part of the global reporting system, we will be required under Thai tax law to not only submit a tax return in Thailand declaring the funds we transfer into Thailand but also all income, if any, earned elsewhere in the world.

 

#4. Despite this not being a great piece of news, the up side of it is that the tax rates here in Thailand are significantly lower than those in Australia.

 

Based on the information I was given I did a quick gestimate of what tax, if any, I might have to pay here in Thailand. So after estimating my annual pension payments received and interest paid to my bank account, and deducting the tax that is automatically deducted from the interest and claiming the over 65 increase in the tax free threshold and teh personal deduction of 60k THB I estimate that I will only have to pay 7k THB in tax (approx AUD $300.00). So all in all not so bad compared to around AUD $9k if I was lodging non resident tax returns in Oz.

Edited January 31 by TigerandDog
correction

[Mike Lister]

3 minutes ago, TigerandDog said:

I had a lengthy telephone conversation last week with a tax accountant in Australia who specialises in the Australian tax treaties.

 

There was some good news for some and also bad news for some.

 

#1.  The first thing he pointed out was that expat Australians permanently living in Thailand (viz. more than 180 days in Thailand, therefore making them tax residents of Thailand not Australia) who have been filing annual non-resident tax returns in Australia and being slugged 32% tax are being taxed illegally by the ATO under the terms of  the Tax Treaty and are eligible to claim a full refund f all the tax paid for those tax returns. He also advised that they should have an Australian tax accountant submit a $0.00 tax return and declare it as a FINAL tax return so they no longer need to submit any future tax returns in Australia, until such time as they become an Australian tax resident again. He cited as an example the case of a client that had been submitting non resident returns in Oz for many years. He made representations on behalf of the client and was able to have $900k refunded to the client by the ATO.

 

#2. Under the tax treaty if we are deemed to be a tax resident of Thailand, then the ATO cannot legally tax you.

 

#3. As a tax resident of Thailand, especially now with Thailand banks bringing their systems into the 21st century and exchanging data with all the countries that are part of the global reporting system, we will be required under Thai tax law to not only submit a tax return in Thailand declaring the funds we transfer into Thailand but also all income, if any, earned elsewhere in the world.

 

#4. Despite this not being a great piece of news, the up side of it is that the tax rates here in Thailand are significantly lower than those in Australia.

 

Based on the information I was given I did a quick gestimate of what tax, if any, I might have to pay here in Thailand. So after estimating annual my pension payments received and interest paid to my bank account, and deducting the tax that is automatically deducted from the interest and claiming the over 65 increase in the tax free threshold and teh personal deduction of 60k THB I estimate that I will only have to pay 7k THB in tax (approx AUD $300.00). So all in all not so bad compared to around AUD $9k if I was lodging non resident tax returns in Oz.

Many thanks for posting that, I'm pretty certain that if others do what you've done and they do the math, they will find out that paying tax in Thailand is not necessarily a bad thing and may actually save them money. Right now, many are still in the "knee jerk" phase and saying they will never pay tax here. Later, many will enter the "coin drop" phase .....:)

[Road Warrior]

20 hours ago, smedly said:

how can they shed light on something the revenue department haven't explained 

still no positive comment from tax authority 

[smedly]

13 hours ago, BenStark said:

 

Well, I wasn't born yesterday, in fact I was born 65 years ago, and had a working life in my home country, and must have paid tax on my earnings.

 

I officially moved here 14 years ago (registered at the embassy at that time) so I had no duty anymore to file tax returns since, as I didn't live or work anymore in my home country or in Thailand.

 

 

so you have no income in the UK is that what you are saying ?

[Mike Lister]

1 minute ago, Road Warrior said:

still no positive comment from tax authority 

What sort of comment are you expecting or waiting for?

 

Please see my post earlier in reply to Smedly on the same subject.

[BenStark]

3 minutes ago, smedly said:

so you have no income in the UK is that what you are saying ?

 

Exactly, and that actually might be because I'm not a Brit, which should be very obvious from my first post in this thread.

 

In addition to that, I also haven't had any income in my home country for the past 14 years, though I started to earn a pension this month

[Liverpool Lou]

12 hours ago, foreverlomsak said:

I'm on the 800k in the bank and have been for years, I only bring in what I want to spend, the 800k stays in the bank year in year out, for example if I bring in nothing for the next few years I will still get my annual extensions, so saying every expat must bring 400k/800k into Thailand every year for a retirement extension and massive tax bills borders on scare mongering.

Those on Monthly Income do not have to show that any money is actually brought into Thailand only that they receive that level of income (UK, US and AUS are different as they need to show the money arriving in their account as they cannot get embassy income statements). Note Thailand can only tax what arrives in Thailand not what stays outside.

Just as matter of interest I expect that my tax bill for bringing in my all my 2024 income not would result in a massive tax bill, my calculations show it to be in the order of 1,200 Baht maximum for the year, only because the UK exchange rate is so high at the moment. As the rules are written just now (may be changed in the future who knows) you have a 100k deduction plus a 60k personal allowance, if married a further 60k spouse allowance, if over 65 or disabled a further 190k allowance (there are other allowances) and the first 150k of taxable income is rated at 0%, then the next 150k is taxed at 5%, the next 200k at 10% and so on. IMHO nothing looks massive unless you are bringing in over 3 million per year, even then???. And don't forget the Double Taxation or other rules/agreements that are applicable to the source country(s) of your income.

Hear, hear!  So refreshing to see such rational sense posted here for once.

[Liverpool Lou]

6 hours ago, Mike Lister said:

The Revenue, Smedly, has already explained all they need to, only one small change has been made to one paragraph of the tax law whilst everything else remains as it has in the past for many many years. Hopefully, the seminar will help explain to anyone who is sitting on the fence, waiting for some huge announcement from the Revenue of massive significance to be made, that nothing is coming!  It was our job to understand the tax rules in the past and to file tax returns when appropriate. We didn't do that because we didn't think we had to, now it's becoming apparent to everyone that we do. That hasn't changed, it's still our job to do those things so everyone needs to get on with it and do it. An excerpt from another post follows:

 

"Assessable income is any income that was remitted to Thailand and was earned after 1 January 2024, whilst tax resident and which is not exempted by the DTA between Thailand and your home country, or by the Thai RD. 

 

The Revenue Department may make some announcements in the coming months or there again they may not. I am hard pressed to understand exactly what announcements might be made or why. We have been told that new tax filing forms are being prepared, presumably they are being redesigned but I don't even know this for certain. It is not impossible to think that we might arrive at 31 December 2024 knowing nothing more than we do today, in respect of Thai tax. If that happens, anyone who has been tax resident here during this year, will be required to file a tax return, as long as they have assessable income that exceeds the threshold of 120,000. Assessable income is defined above. It will be YOUR responsibility to understand your country's DTA with Thailand and determine what constitutes assessable income. DTA's are available to download and are linked in the OP.

Well said.

[Mike Lister]

35 minutes ago, TigerandDog said:

I had a lengthy telephone conversation last week with a tax accountant in Australia who specialises in the Australian tax treaties.

 

There was some good news for some and also bad news for some.

 

#1.  The first thing he pointed out was that expat Australians permanently living in Thailand (viz. more than 180 days in Thailand, therefore making them tax residents of Thailand not Australia) who have been filing annual non-resident tax returns in Australia and being slugged 32% tax are being taxed illegally by the ATO under the terms of  the Tax Treaty and are eligible to claim a full refund of all the tax paid for those tax returns. He also advised that they should have an Australian tax accountant submit a $0.00 tax return and declare it as a FINAL tax return so they no longer need to submit any future tax returns in Australia, until such time as they become an Australian tax resident again. He cited as an example the case of a client that had been submitting non resident returns in Oz for many years. He made representations on behalf of the client and was able to have $900k refunded to the client by the ATO.

 

#2. Under the tax treaty if we are deemed to be a tax resident of Thailand, then the ATO cannot legally tax you.

 

#3. As a tax resident of Thailand, especially now with Thailand banks bringing their systems into the 21st century and exchanging data with all the countries that are part of the global reporting system, we will be required under Thai tax law to not only submit a tax return in Thailand declaring the funds we transfer into Thailand but also all income, if any, earned elsewhere in the world.

 

#4. Despite this not being a great piece of news, the up side of it is that the tax rates here in Thailand are significantly lower than those in Australia.

 

Based on the information I was given I did a quick gestimate of what tax, if any, I might have to pay here in Thailand. So after estimating my annual pension payments received and interest paid to my bank account, and deducting the tax that is automatically deducted from the interest and claiming the over 65 increase in the tax free threshold and teh personal deduction of 60k THB I estimate that I will only have to pay 7k THB in tax (approx AUD $300.00). So all in all not so bad compared to around AUD $9k if I was lodging non resident tax returns in Oz.

I have posted a link to your report, in the Revenue Contact Reports thread, in the Finance section. That way your fellow countrymen will stand a better chance of seeing it.

[Bday Prang]

19 hours ago, BritScot said:

if your embassy is correct then every expat is going to get a massive tax bill and its very simple because minimum 400,000baht ~ 800,000baht has to be brought in to Thailand for a retierment visa every year

The embassy may be correct, however you are not,   its "very simple"  

[kinyara]

Some decent posts at last, I wonder how many of the hysterical have actually sat down and done a ballpark calculation of how little tax they are actually likely to be liable for here. I already knew from a few minutes back of a fag packet calculation after looking at the local allowance and rate thresholds my liability is negligble and not worth busting a gut over. I'm more interesting in clarification of the technicalities, such as my relevant Double Taxation Agreement, and I've no doubt that will be clear by the time I have to file in March 2026 in my case.

Edited January 31 by kinyara
Spelling error

[Mike Lister]

19 hours ago, BritScot said:

If your embassy is correct then every expat is going to get a massive tax bill and its very simple because minimum 400,000baht ~ 800,000baht has to be brought in to Thailand for a retierment visa every year. The Thai government is not your friend. They want every satang they can squeeze out of you. Only when thousands of expats leave will it become another misunderstanding. 

The embassy is correct but your assumptions are not since the tax rates in Thailand are significantly lower than they are in the West but the TEDA (Tax Exemptions Deductions and Allowances) can be comparable for many, especially retirees.

[kingstonkid]

22 hours ago, Will B Good said:

'Free'.....mmmm!

 

You'll get nailed for something......still going though.

There is no cost. They are trolling for customers.  That is where they get the reimbursement.

 

It would be nice if someone in Bkk did the same thing.

[J Branche]

There was only 30 free seats and event is fully booked according to website.  This event is for British tax payers.  They will most likely Not speak about taxes or tax treaties for other countries.

 

Hopefully the Thai Revenue Department will finalize and publish the taxes and how they will apply to different countries tax paying citizens soon.  

 

Really hard to plan or make the best decisions if you are not informed of the consequences.

[digger70]

Why all the Fuss about the New/Old tax Laws .

Just Read this, this is for us old Retired folks on a overseas pension:   https://www.thaiembassy.com/faq/do-retirees-pay-income-tax#:~:text=Only income earned inside Thailand,while on a retirement visa.

[Mike Lister]

31 minutes ago, digger70 said:

Why all the Fuss about the New/Old tax Laws .

Just Read this, this is for us old Retired folks on a overseas pension:   https://www.thaiembassy.com/faq/do-retirees-pay-income-tax#:~:text=Only income earned inside Thailand,while on a retirement visa.

That is not the Thai Embassy, it is a commercial site that sells visa's and the information is long out of date!

[pizzachang]

22 hours ago, BritScot said:

If your embassy is correct then every expat is going to get a massive tax bill and its very simple because minimum 400,000baht ~ 800,000baht has to be brought in to Thailand for a retierment visa every year.

Would Thai citizens be paying "taxes' on their "pension income"?  Somehow, this is more confusing than I thought. Pension funds are not "earned income", in any sense.  If a pensioner was "earning" interest on funds brought into Thailand, I could see a case being made to tack on taxes, but otherwise... nope.

[Phulublub]

17 hours ago, BenStark said:

So if you earn money in a country A, then you will be taxed on those earnings in that country, but as soon as you import the money into country B where you are a resident for tax purposes, and the tax scale on that amount of earnings is higher in country B than in the country you have paid already, then you will still have to pay the difference

That is broadly correct.

 

PH

[Phulublub]

17 hours ago, BenStark said:

 

The money in my accounts in my home country is there for decades already, so obviously I have paid tax on it when I still lived there and earned it.

 

So according to you I have to pay tax again if I want to use the money I earned more than 14 years ago?

Wrong.  As prevosuly explained, money already held before 1 Jan 24 is outside the scope of this new legislation.  Prudent people will make sure they have statements that show balances in case there is later any question about source of funds remitted to Thailand.

 

PH 

[Phulublub]

16 hours ago, BenStark said:

 

Wrong

 

Well unless you manage to live on less than 800K a year, then you have to bring it in EVERY year

Your 800K is a total red herring. 

 

Yes, you need to import what you need to live on and that may be more, less or abut 800K.  But as has been said many times, much of that income, for many people, will be exempt under a DTA.  Other money remitted will also be exempt if it was earned before the start of this year.

 

PH

[Phulublub]

13 minutes ago, pizzachang said:

Would Thai citizens be paying "taxes' on their "pension income"?  Somehow, this is more confusing than I thought. Pension funds are not "earned income", in any sense.  If a pensioner was "earning" interest on funds brought into Thailand, I could see a case being made to tack on taxes, but otherwise... nope.

"Earned Income" is an incorrect term.  "Assessable Income" is what should be used and, unless exempt by a DTA, pensions are Assessable Income.

 

PH

[Srikcir]

23 hours ago, BenStark said:

If you live in Thailand for more than 180 days a year

More than an "aggregate" of 180 days a year. Having gaps in your stay won't exempt you.

[koolkarl]

You will still get nothing for any amount of tax you pay, no health care, no immigrant status, etc.  You just get an extra 6 months a year to stay here and breathe the polluted air.  Not worth it in any way, shape or form unless you are a sucker.

[scorecard]

On 1/30/2024 at 1:31 PM, smedly said:

how can they shed light on something the revenue department haven't explained 

 

Excellent and very relevant point.

 

These guys are trying to build a database of foreigners they can approach later with something that brings them revenues.