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Posted
10 minutes ago, Dogmatix said:

 

No need for Immigration to cooperate with the RD to do this.  The RD already has a system for taxpayers to get a certified copy of their latest tax return.  Just show up at your local tax office with a copy of your tax return and they will give you a stamped a signed copy for a small fee of about 100 baht.  The police just need to add at certified copy of the latest tax return to the list of documents required for visa renewal.  I think this is already done for NON-B visas.  Also no need for the Immigration to report anything to the RD.  You don't have a certified tax return, you don't get your visa renewed and have to leave the country. They could pass the information to the RD who could send you a notice reminding you to do a tax return but government departments hate cooperating with each other or providing access to each other's databases. 

 

Requiring certified tax returns is so easy that its a no brainer for Immigration. If you have enough income or savings to live on for another year, it is not unreasonable for them to assume you remitted at least 120k in the previous tax year. If that is all non-assessable, you can file a turn return with zero income, just like my company has to file a monthly VAT return showing zero VATable income. 

well from what folks have written that have done the tax filling, there is no input for non-assessable income such as dta protected pensions. so guess in any case they might have to re-do the forms and then notify us that they want these new forms too.  I will not get a tax ID number unless the TRD says anyone who remits any funds (even if non-assessable) must file so must get an id number so they would need to change the criteria for that too as it is rule #1 - obtaining a TRD tax nr within 60 days of remitting assessable funds - change to even non-assessable remittances.  We're waiting...probably until 2025 and then the hassles begin as they haven't thought of all the things the expats will come up with.

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Posted
15 hours ago, Paris333 said:

The article is very clear:

Expatriates with Taxed Income For expatriates receiving income already taxed in another country, such as pensions, these amounts will not be subject to additional Thai taxes. This is particularly relevant for retirees living in Thailand who receive pensions from their home countries.

Source:

https://www.pattayamail.com/latestnews/news/new-tax-rules-for-foreign-sourced-income-464735

So if you have Saving Account in Europe and you are retired in permanent residency in Thailand it doesnt have to do or you are not  obliged to transfer your Savings in Thai Banks to receive almost zero interest rates.

You can tranfer them periodically for your needs with.....low Bank fees with Revolut as I do not only in Thais but also to U.A.E where I bought two small 55 sq/m apartments just for renting €1.500 + €1.500 = €3.000 per month income.

Are you searching for idiots to liquidate my small assets and to tranfer them in Thais receiving almost zero interest rates or to tax "me" in order Seven party Thai Government to give "benefits" to Thais?

You are not serious!!!

Source:

https://www.revolut.com/en-LU/money-transfer/send-money-to-thailand/

There is a general misunderstanding about of those who have been or periodically visit Thailand that they are illegals in something or in worst case they are "seniors" searching for prostitutes or childs dull bubble sh.....ts stories.

Of course its not true at least to the extent mentioned in portals......

We are legal citizens nothing to hide and above of Thais tax law since we are legal foreigners from European or American States.

 

I note that the tax advisor quoted cites no reference for his assertion that overseas pensions will not be taxable in Thailand.  The RD has been silent on the application of the remittance tax but in its interview with the Swiss embassy the RD official made clear that they had every intention of taxing pension income remitted to Thailand.  A DTA may allow you a tax credit but they have said that, if the Thai tax rate is higher they will come after you for the difference.  They have not said what they would accept as evidence of a tax credit which is anyway made extremely difficult by the lack of synchronisation of tax years.  For example, if you are a Brit, when you file your tax return in March 2025, how do you show your UK tax return for the period 6 April to 31 Dec 2024 when the UK tax year only ends on 5 April 2025?  Potentially you will have to pay full Thai tax on pension (and rental) income for that part of the year and try to claim a tax credit from HMRC which will not be forthcoming because HMRC has made very clear that it exercises its "may tax" option on any income arising in the UK - a not unreasonable position.  There the UK expects Thailand to exercise its "may tax" right to collect only the difference, if Thai rates ae higher.  

 

The big problem here is that DTAs are very vague and countries have to come to mutual understandings on how to operate them.  Within EU and including the UK  they have developed these unwritten understandings.  Generally speaking they accept the principle that income is taxed in the European country it arises and the European country where the taxpayer resides will not attempt to collect teh difference on income that has been subject to tax in another European country. 

 

Thailand has no such understanding on how to operate DTAs with any other country and has not produced any domestic regulations on how RD staff should apply DTAs. If you ask them, they will admit they don't have a clue.  But RD officials have indicated that intend to apply the letter of the DTAs in order to collect as much tax as they can. 

 

Hopefully they will one day come up with understandings with the 61 countries with which they have DTAs not to try to collect more tax on income already subjected to tax in another country but it is premature and highly misleading for a tax advisor to claim this has already happened without zero supporting evidence. 

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Posted

That may be the case my point is the Thai authorities will have to do a national campaign to inform All expats of the exact legal position! nobody has any idea of what will really come to pass or be enforced. Most likely nothing will be clarified before next year knowing how Thai authorities operate . There would be enormous pressure on immigration and the tax department in January next year if we all had to file and get the necessary paperwork there would need to be thousands of extra staff trained in all languages and international tax treaties and code's, would be very difficult for the Thai revenue department to be upto speed for years 

 

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Posted
59 minutes ago, Presnock said:

well from what folks have written that have done the tax filling, there is no input for non-assessable income such as dta protected pensions. so guess in any case they might have to re-do the forms and then notify us that they want these new forms too.  I will not get a tax ID number unless the TRD says anyone who remits any funds (even if non-assessable) must file so must get an id number so they would need to change the criteria for that too as it is rule #1 - obtaining a TRD tax nr within 60 days of remitting assessable funds - change to even non-assessable remittances.  We're waiting...probably until 2025 and then the hassles begin as they haven't thought of all the things the expats will come up with.

 

Bear in mind that the only DTA protected pensions are pensions of former government officers and US social security plus maybe some other countries' state pensions.  These are in the "shall tax" category.  The vast majority of state pensions and all private pensions are in the "may tax" category which means that Thailand can exercise its option to tax them, even though they are already subject to tax.  In these cases the DTAs only protect you from double taxation but not from dual taxation.

 

I don't think they are going to redo the PND 90/91 forms, even to provide a space for claiming of tax credits.  We are half way through the tax year now and nothing has been said. They are very lazy and can easily argue that DTAs have been in place for 50 years and (a very small number of) people have been claiming tax credits without this.

 

Think about it like the requirement for a company to register for VAT in order to apply for a WP.  Companies with revenue under 1.8 million a year or 300k in a single month and companies who have no domestic sales do not have to register for VAT.  My company had no domestic sales but I had to register for VAT and file monthly zero returns which I still have to to today more than 10 years after cancelling my WP with that company. There is no way to get out of the VAT net once you are in it, other than dissolving the company.  If Immigration decides that everyone on a non-tourist visa presumably has some income and must present a certified tax return to renew their visa, they are not going to care about subtleties.  If you have to get a certified tax return and have no assessable income, they will think that is tough luck, as they will probably not believe you anyway.  However, it is not too difficult to file a tax return declaring 120-180k in income and get the piece of paper Immigration is asking for without having to pay any tax and it would only cost 100 or 200 baht.  

 

I think they would have to give plenty of lead time to allow people to get TINs and tax certificates.  For example they could announce around now that anyone on a non-tourist visa from before 1 July  2025 will need to show a certified tax return for renewals after April 2026.  All of them will be tax residents and none would have any excuse not to comply with that.

Posted

As time goes by, and the Revenue Department does little or nothing to prepare for the mass numbers of Farang tax returns supposedly required in 2025, I am beginning to think this is a nothingburger.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Dogmatix said:

 

Come on. You are forgetting where you are and forgetting that Thai bureaucrats are very lazy and want to be noticed by the politicians for coming up with stuff that can be made to sound as if a huge amount of incremental tax will be collected with no backlash from Thai voters.  They don't think through the ramifications and don't care if a chaotic situation is created for others to clean up, as long as it is not going to get Thai protestors out on the streets to make them look bad.  The guy who signed the order had already been promoted from the RD to be finance permanent secretary and left the RD 10 days later with his quick win on his record and he might be in the running for a juicy post-retirement job, even finance minister, if noticed by politicians.  If the implementation is messy, he can blame it on his successor.  He is also the guy behind the abolition of the waiver on tax on small imported packages below 1,500 baht declared value, claiming fancifully that will raise 700 million in incremental tax before the end of this year.  No mention of the cost of collecting tiny amounts of VAT, potential chaos in post offices or the likelihood that Thais will avoid buying many of these imported products that are not available in Thailand at all to avoid huge queues in post offices.  They simply don't care. 

Exactly, that's the entire issue.

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Posted
19 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

As time goes by, and the Revenue Department does little or nothing to prepare for the mass numbers of Farang tax returns supposedly required in 2025, I am beginning to think this is a nothingburger.

 

While others will try to convince you otherwise. Gotta wonder why.

Posted
38 minutes ago, Celsius said:

 

While others will try to convince you otherwise. Gotta wonder why.

Gee, that's a tough one, let me think for a mo. Hmm, try to explain to others that the tax laws have changed and there's a new emphasis on foreigners filing returns and declaring income. Why ever would anyone want to do that, in a country where official communications are often poor and visa surprises are often announced at short notice ......I give up, it's got me stumped. What's the answer? Will there be a big reveal?

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Posted
19 minutes ago, yozah said:

You are not helping anyone. You are just normalizing the situation aka working for the tax department.

Here ya go, some light reading, come back to us with any questions:

 

 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Mike Lister said:

Here ya go, some light reading, come back to us with any questions:

 

 

Your point? Confession?

Posted
22 hours ago, Mike Lister said:

Ignorance of the law is not usually a good defense in any country, least of all here, I imagine. The average person may not be a member of AN but they might be expected to read newspapers, read online forums/periodicals, have a visa agent and/or they might be expected to have a bank account, all of which would inform them of what changes have been implemented. Waiting for an official notice to appear in the mail box, seems to me to be bloody minded rather than practical or sensible but each to their own.

I have an LTR visa, as long as I am not instructed by BOI to file a tax return I will nor do so. I believe that those waiting instructions from TI would have a point.

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Posted (edited)
47 minutes ago, Ben Zioner said:

I have an LTR visa, as long as I am not instructed by BOI to file a tax return I will nor do so. I believe that those waiting instructions from TI would have a point.

No reason to panic or even be afraid, even if some people here are painting the devil on the wall. What big thing is supposed to happen? I'm also waiting for an official invitation. Be it a letter from the tax office or maybe at some point in the future that immigration tells me they still need a tax document. Then you have to take action and perhaps pay a late fee, just as it has developed over many years with the TM30.

In my case, my Thai tax advisor advises me to wait.

 

On the other hand, anyone who has trouble sleeping because of this new, internal tax instruction (e.g. this is not a new tax law, but just an internal procedural instruction that reinterprets current law; and the whole thing is currently very controversial) thinks that they should get a tax number in advance to have to, should do it.

Ultimately, everyone has to decide for themselves and their specific situation.

Edited by tomacht8
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Posted
3 hours ago, Porthos said:

For the evidence to claim foreign tax credit, Tax Payment Certificate issued by foreign tax authority is recommended.

 

https://www.rd.go.th/fileadmin/user_upload/lorkhor/newspr/2024/FOREIGNERS_PAY_TAX2024.pdf (24 April 2024)

Thanks. This is helpfull. In my country you no get such a Certificate. The tax authority give your the yearly taxreport (around 10 Pages) with the amount you must pay. After you pay with banktransfer your tax bill. That's it.

If a Thai tax officer will accept this two papers (Report + Bankslip), who knows?

I will ask my european tax advisor if there is a possibility to get such a "Certificate".

 

Even if it's just a precautionary preparation, the f@&"&ing bureaucracy and paperwork starts now. Running costs, translator costs, certification fees, loss of time. 

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Posted
21 minutes ago, JimGant said:

Says who? There's probably a new desire for foreigners -- with TAXABLE income -- to file a tax return, and pay the appropriate taxes. But a desire to have someone with 120k in assessable income -- but who is 380k short of taxable income (after deductions/allowances/150k freebie) -- to have to file a nil tax return -- is NUTS! Why would TRD want to deal with all that worthless paper, and the cost of processing it....?

 

But, yes, if now you realize that the new remittance rules mean you owe taxes -- by golly, go get a TIN, and then file a tax return, and pay the taxes owed (and then, per DTA, deduct those taxes from your home country tax return).

 

But if you don't owe Thai taxes -- then don't get a TIN, don't file a nil tax return, and then relax. The worst that can happen is -- in the miniscule chance they'll call you in -- and you did, indeed, have assessable income exceeding 120k -- you'll owe a 2000 baht fine -- which is cheaper than all that effort to get a TIN and to file a tax return -- assuming your time is worth something.

 

So, use your common sense with this. Yes, if you owe taxes, file and pay. But if you don't -- not to worry about certain suggestions, including the big house, without vaseline.

 

 

With your selective recall, you like to forget, conveniently, that not filing when supposed to, also exposes you to 10 years worth of back audits, rather than the statutory 3......a minor point of course, probably not worth mentioning, eh!

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