Introduction to Personal Income Tax in Thailand

[topt]

6 minutes ago, chiang mai said:

pending further clarification by sources or people unknown at this point. 

Respectfully based on what I have quoted above plus other extensive reading I have to agree with this -

13 minutes ago, anrcaccount said:

It defines the financial information reported, which is not at an individual transaction level.

 

Logically that makes sense as otherwise the amounts of data being sent would be massive. However that is also not to say that it won't change in the future.

[anrcaccount]

2 minutes ago, chiang mai said:

If you can't provide a simple quote or quotes to support your statements, I can't believe that any exist, sorry but that's the way I view things. Pushing responsibility for reading the document to identify the statements that resonated with you, onto us, isn't something that's either sensible or logical. Perhaps we simply leave the issue open, pending further clarification by sources or people unknown at this point. 

 

What a cop out. There is no open issue here. 

 

Read the document,  under table 4 (for the 3rd time, page 60) it defines exactly what financial information is shared which is only yearly aggregate account balances, does not include individual transactions, excepting the cases of income as specified in table 5. 

 

Also, read the wikipedia page on the CRS ,  I'll even paste the relevant section here for you, below. 

 

As you can see from both sources , what resonated with me was that there's absolutely no way that this information shared can include individual foreign ATM and foreign credit card transactions. So, my original point remains, that this is simply misinformation being pushed by 'expat' tax experts, in order to drive demand for their services. 

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Reporting_Standard

 

The information and its exchange format are governed by a detailed standard, whose details are listed in a 44-page long document.^[15]

Each participating country will annually automatically exchange with the other country the below information in the case of Jurisdiction A with respect to each Jurisdiction B reportable account, and in the case of Jurisdiction B with respect to each Jurisdiction A reportable account:^[16]

1. Name, address, Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) and date and place of birth of each Reportable Person.
2. Account number
3. Name and identifying number of the reporting financial institution;
4. Account balance or value as of the end of the relevant calendar year (or other appropriate reporting period) or at its closure, if the account was closed.
5. Distributions made to the account (dividends, interest, gross proceeds/redemptions, other)

[chiang mai]

2 minutes ago, topt said:

Respectfully based on what I have quoted above plus other extensive reading I have to agree with this -

 

Logically that makes sense as otherwise the amounts of data being sent would be massive. However that is also not to say that it won't change in the future.

If you've read it and have arrived at that conclusion, that's great, my jury however is still not fully in.. 

[chiang mai]

1 minute ago, anrcaccount said:

 

What a cop out. There is no open issue here. 

 

Read the document,  under table 4 (for the 3rd time, page 60) it defines exactly what financial information is shared which is only yearly aggregate account balances, does not include individual transactions, excepting the cases of income as specified in table 5. 

 

Also, read the wikipedia page on the CRS ,  I'll even paste the relevant section here for you, below. 

 

As you can see from both sources , what resonated with me was that there's absolutely no way that this information shared can include individual foreign ATM and foreign credit card transactions. So, my original point remains, that this is simply misinformation being pushed by 'expat' tax experts, in order to drive demand for their services. 

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Reporting_Standard

 

The information and its exchange format are governed by a detailed standard, whose details are listed in a 44-page long document.^[15]

Each participating country will annually automatically exchange with the other country the below information in the case of Jurisdiction A with respect to each Jurisdiction B reportable account, and in the case of Jurisdiction B with respect to each Jurisdiction A reportable account:^[16]

1. Name, address, Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) and date and place of birth of each Reportable Person.
2. Account number
3. Name and identifying number of the reporting financial institution;
4. Account balance or value as of the end of the relevant calendar year (or other appropriate reporting period) or at its closure, if the account was closed.
5. Distributions made to the account (dividends, interest, gross proceeds/redemptions, other)

I'm not copping out of anything, I'm asking you to support your statements at a detailed level, rather than telling me to read a lengthy document.

 

The above does help significantly but point 5 is confusing because it seems to be saying that is details of all disbursements or payments made TO the account, which I interpret to mean all inputs, along with redemptions which I take to mean outputs.....or maybe others see that differently.

 

[anrcaccount]

2 minutes ago, chiang mai said:

I'm not copping out of anything, I'm asking you to support your statements at a detailed level, rather than telling me to read a lengthy document.

 

The above does help significantly but point 5 is confusing because it seems to be saying that is details of all disbursements or payments made TO the account, which I interpret to mean all inputs, along with redemptions which I take to mean outputs.....or maybe others see that differently.

 

 

No, its nothing to do with "all disbursement and payments", and certainly nothing to do with outputs, these are your own words , your own misinterpretation. 

 

Here, from the Thai RD CRS document for you (table 5, page 61 , please also check the further description column for more info) : note that all of these are only totals and not individual transactions.

 

Furthermore, they are nothing to do with withdrawing via an ATM, or using a credit card.

 

 

The total gross amount of interest paid or credited to the account.

The total gross amount of dividends paid or credited to the account

The total gross amount of other income generated with respect to the assets held in the account paid or credited to the account 

The total gross proceeds from the sale or redemption of Financial Assets paid or credited to the account

 

 

Now, do you understand? 

[chiang mai]

20 minutes ago, anrcaccount said:

 

No, its nothing to do with "all disbursement and payments", and certainly nothing to do with outputs, these are your own words , your own misinterpretation. 

 

Here, from the Thai RD CRS document for you (table 5, page 61 , please also check the further description column for more info) : note that all of these are only totals and not individual transactions.

 

Furthermore, they are nothing to do with withdrawing via an ATM, or using a credit card.

 

 

The total gross amount of interest paid or credited to the account.

The total gross amount of dividends paid or credited to the account

The total gross amount of other income generated with respect to the assets held in the account paid or credited to the account 

The total gross proceeds from the sale or redemption of Financial Assets paid or credited to the account

 

 

Now, do you understand? 

I haven't read any of the document yet and I'm not sure if I will, I'm simply quoting your words in the above posts so I don't know if you are quoting the document or using your own words. One minutes you say, 

 

5. Distributions made to the account (dividends, interest, gross proceeds/redemptions, other)

 

The next you say,

 

The total gross proceeds from the sale or redemption of Financial Assets paid or credited to the account.

 

So, you ask me do I understand? Well, not yet I don't so maybe I will do some reading at some point. Once again, thank you for providing the link.

 

[anrcaccount]

3 minutes ago, chiang mai said:

I haven't read any of the document yet and I'm not sure if I will, I'm simply quoting your words in the above posts so I don't know if you are quoting the document or using your own words. One minutes you say, 

 

5. Distributions made to the account (dividends, interest, gross proceeds/redemptions, other)

 

The next you say,

 

The total gross proceeds from the sale or redemption of Financial Assets paid or credited to the account.

 

So, you ask me do I understand? Well, not yet I don't so maybe I will do some reading at some point. Once again, thank you for providing the link.

 

 

No problem, you're welcome. Do the reading and it will be clear. 

 

 

[chiang mai]

14 hours ago, anrcaccount said:

 

No problem, you're welcome. Do the reading and it will be clear. 

 

 

I am slowly starting to read, it's riveting but it'll take time before I conclude. In the meantime, I revisited the "misleading" statement made by tax advisors and agree it is just that, misleading. However, it is not untruthful, it's just ambiguous and lacking clarity. 

 

Financial activity including deposits and with drawls, are reported to the TRD, it's just that they appear to be reported in total rather than in detail, ditto transactions that are reported to the TRD. That said, I started to wonder about the frequency of this reporting and what exactly the likes of TRD would do with the information. I like to think if I was TRD and I received those reports/that data monthly, I might write my own program to match  accounts numbers and examine the difference in balances between accounts each month ,which would let me see monthly activity in some detail. Even if it was quarterly, it would still be possible to see fairly detailed events. This of course is all supposition and guess work but I wouldn't dismiss out of hand, how much fairly detailed information a Revenue Department from any country will be able to obtain as a result of CRS.

[topt]

6 hours ago, chiang mai said:

That said, I started to wonder about the frequency of this reporting

If you are referring to the required format for CRS reporting that is supposedly one time per year according to all I have read and that seems pretty clear to me.

If you are referring to Thai institutions reporting stuff to TRD or BOT then no idea.

[chiang mai]

42 minutes ago, topt said:

If you are referring to the required format for CRS reporting that is supposedly one time per year according to all I have read and that seems pretty clear to me.

If you are referring to Thai institutions reporting stuff to TRD or BOT then no idea.

I'm not sure which I'm referring to, all I know is that somewhere along the line, the data that is exchanged has to be useable and capable of being deconstructed or compared in such a way that the TRD and/or the central bank can make use of it to detect both crime and evasion.

[topt]

5 minutes ago, chiang mai said:

I'm not sure which I'm referring to, all I know is that somewhere along the line, the data that is exchanged has to be useable and capable of being deconstructed or compared in such a way that the TRD and/or the central bank can make use of it to detect both crime and evasion.

I have just read most of it through again and definitely it is not at transaction level. 

My guess would be that the top line may flag an inconsistency which would then lead to further enquiries.

 

Also interestingly it talks a lot about due diligence and page 45 is about this for new accounts - which may be one of the reasons why it has got so much more difficult (according to posts on here) to open new accounts even where they already have an existing account.

[PBob]

Thanks Mike a good source of information for what is known and what is not known.

It has prompted me to check that I have copies of documentation (statements etc) from the start of the year and calculate a likely Thai tax charge based upon transfers this year.

Going to get a TIN for me and my wife before the year end. 

The only wrinkle that I have is the different tax year end and reporting period between Thailand and the UK.

I paid UK tax on my pension for the year ending April 2024 and assume that I can offset this against Thai tax for this year. I have calculated that I have overpaid tax and have queried it with HMRC. It is possible that this will not be resolved by the time I complete the Thai return. So I could be claiming a UK tax payment that could be returned by HRMC.

 

[K2938]

1) Is my understanding correct that obtaining a Thai TIN by itself does not change a person's obligation to file a tax return or pay taxes, i.e. if the person before did not have an obligation to file a tax return or pay taxes, then this remains unchanged when the person obtains a Thai TIN?
 

2) Is my understanding also correct that a person who stays in Thailand less than 179 days per year and has no Thai income apart from some small interest income from which withholding tax is automatically deducted does not have an obligation to file a tax return in Thailand?

Thank you.

[chiang mai]

11 minutes ago, K2938 said:

1) Is my understanding correct that obtaining a Thai TIN by itself does not change a person's obligation to file a tax return or pay taxes, i.e. if the person before did not have an obligation to file a tax return or pay taxes, then this remains unchanged when the person obtains a Thai TIN?
 

2) Is my understanding also correct that a person who stays in Thailand less than 179 days per year and has no Thai income apart from some small interest income from which withholding tax is automatically deducted does not have an obligation to file a tax return in Thailand?

Thank you.

Correct

[Presnock]

Still unclear to me, reading the Thai Revenue Department rules/regulations concerning this taxation bit - I as an American having only a US govt pension as inclome so under the DTA not taxable outside the US, plus I have an LTR so the monies I do remit from my pension each month, are also not taxable - this, I do not have ANY ASSESSABLE Thai income, so IAW the rules of the Revenue Dept, I do not have to obtain a tax ID number although I live here 365 days a year.  I have not been queried by my US bank about a TIN so until I experience any problem or until the Thai govt via the RD changes the requirement for obtaining a TIN, I will ignore this subject.  I am amazed still of so many people tryiing to avoid paying taxes somewhere, obviously not Americans since we learn from birth that we will have to pay taxes until we die.  Best of luck to you that wish to avoid paying taxes anywhere, that is why so many countries have signed onto the OECD, FACTA and CRS programs, even some autocrat nations have done so.  As for worldwide income taxation programs, I have recently seen that North Korea has joined the US and Ethiopia as the 3 countries doing worldwide income taxation but believe many will be joining that list unless they already have.  

[Rimmer]

A troll post has been removed

[Unamerican]

On 7/26/2024 at 5:01 PM, sometimewoodworker said:

Yes. The websites have been posted. None of them will account for every allowance available. None will take DTAs into account.

 

it is impolite to ask the same question multiple times in multiple threads

What does this mean?

 

And:

 

Where are these posts, please? 

[Unamerican]

On 8/16/2024 at 10:39 AM, chiang mai said:

If you are not tax resident (more than 180 days) you are not eligible to obtain a TIN or file a return to reclaim tax paid.

That sounds very unlikely!  People have been doing both of these for very many years. 

[chiang mai]

27 minutes ago, Unamerican said:

That sounds very unlikely!  People have been doing both of these for very many years. 

If you say so 

[sometimewoodworker]

1 hour ago, Unamerican said:

Where are these posts, please? 

https://aseannow.com/forum/13-jobs-economy-banking-business-investments/

[KhunHeineken]

On 8/27/2024 at 4:20 AM, chiang mai said:

If you say so 

Are you suggesting that someone who has never stayed in Thailand for more than 180 days in a calendar year, thus, are not a resident of Thailand for tax purposes,  still needs a TIN?

[dinga]

CATS AMONGST THE PIGEONS

 

Here's an extract from today's BP article - apparently a quote by the Director-General of TRD:  

 

Previously, if an individual met the 180-day tax resident requirement and had foreign income, they paid personal income tax on that income only if it was brought into the country within the year it was earned.

This rule was revised effective from Jan 1, 2024. Tax is now payable on foreign income regardless of when it is brought into the country. To give an example, Mr A sold shares in an overseas company in 2020, realised a capital gain and banked the money in an overseas account. If he brings the proceeds from that capital gain into Thailand in 2024, he must report it as assessable income when filing a tax return.

 

[anrcaccount]

7 minutes ago, dinga said:

CATS AMONGST THE PIGEONS

 

Here's an extract from today's BP article - apparently a quote by the Director-General of TRD:  

 

Previously, if an individual met the 180-day tax resident requirement and had foreign income, they paid personal income tax on that income only if it was brought into the country within the year it was earned.

This rule was revised effective from Jan 1, 2024. Tax is now payable on foreign income regardless of when it is brought into the country. To give an example, Mr A sold shares in an overseas company in 2020, realised a capital gain and banked the money in an overseas account. If he brings the proceeds from that capital gain into Thailand in 2024, he must report it as assessable income when filing a tax return.

 

 

Just a rehash of the same article, already published on June 5th., in that same publication.

 

Nothing new, no new information. 

 

[chiang mai]

10 minutes ago, dinga said:

CATS AMONGST THE PIGEONS

 

Here's an extract from today's BP article - apparently a quote by the Director-General of TRD:  

 

Previously, if an individual met the 180-day tax resident requirement and had foreign income, they paid personal income tax on that income only if it was brought into the country within the year it was earned.

This rule was revised effective from Jan 1, 2024. Tax is now payable on foreign income regardless of when it is brought into the country. To give an example, Mr A sold shares in an overseas company in 2020, realised a capital gain and banked the money in an overseas account. If he brings the proceeds from that capital gain into Thailand in 2024, he must report it as assessable income when filing a tax return.

 

Delete, I misread the post

[dinga]

2 minutes ago, anrcaccount said:

 

Just a rehash of the same article, already published on June 5th., in that same publication.

 

Nothing new, no new information. 

 

First I've heard this  -  it's not sufficient to establish (say) Bank Account balances as at 31/12/2023 but according to this report there is a need to track the actual sources of those funds for perhaps many years in the past.

 

Also can't recall any discussions here about such

 

 

 

[dinga]

13 minutes ago, anrcaccount said:

 

Just a rehash of the same article, already published on June 5th., in that same publication.

 

Nothing new, no new information. 

 

Please re-confirm the date of the claimed article (I've looked at the 5 June Edition and there is no such article)

 

 

[anrcaccount]

1 hour ago, dinga said:

Please re-confirm the date of the claimed article (I've looked at the 5 June Edition and there is no such article)

 

 

 

I can't link to it. The title of the article June 5th was "New overseas income rules" , and the wording is nearly identical.

 

The article was syndicated by multiple other publications at that time in June. One of the titles of these was "thailand-to-tax-residents-foreign-income-irrespective-of-remittance" , it has it's own discussion thread on here. 

 

This article posted today has nothing new. 

 

[dinga]

4 minutes ago, anrcaccount said:

 

I can't link to it. The title of the article June 5th was "New overseas income rules" , and the wording is nearly identical.

 

The article was syndicated by multiple other publications at that time in June. One of the titles of these was "thailand-to-tax-residents-foreign-income-irrespective-of-remittance" , it has it's own discussion thread on here. 

 

This article posted today has nothing new. 

 

Thanks - found it.  What a crock - that Article mixes up the Remittance Change with Worldwide Income.  No wonder I missed the Remittance example  -  look at the bl**dy headline:

 

New overseas income rules proposed

Adoption of 'worldwide income' principle could have major implications for taxpayers

There has been much speculation about the uncertain treatment of Remittances of comingled accounts, Savings Vs Income etc - but this is the 1st (assumed) definitive position of the TRD - and it's a shocker unless Daddy intervenes

 

 

[anrcaccount]

10 minutes ago, dinga said:

but this is the 1st (assumed) definitive position of the TRD -

 

It's nothing close to a definitive position.

 

It just repeats the same earlier news, that they are considering taxing worldwide income regardless of remittance. A very long way to go yet, before that could become reality. 

[xylophone]

Please pardon me if someone else has asked this question before, only I have been unwell and sometimes find it difficult to focus/concentrate, so have not been following this "personal income tax" thread very closely at all.

I checked my Bangkok Bank account, in which I have the 800 K invested for "retirement" purposes and noticed that tax has been deducted on the interest earned, so does that mean that somewhere in the system I have a TIN?? And if so, how to find it – – I suppose I could ask the bank??

Any help would be much appreciated.