Thailand to tax residents’ foreign income irrespective of remittance

[Digitalbanana]

1 hour ago, beammeup said:

So this only affects individuals with income over 1 billion Baht?

Give or take a billion. The B.Post said 2 billion Baht in an earlier release.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

45 minutes ago, JimGant said:

Why's that? The US already taxes my worldwide income. If Thailand wants a piece of the pie, their share, per the Double Taxation Agreement, will be a credit against my US taxation. Except for a very few outlier scenarios, there will be no change in my total annual tax bill under this new policy.

 

Jim, so if they do this, then it means they're abandoning the whole notion they announced and publicized in past months of only planning to tax foreign income, subject to DTAs and such, when it's imported into Thailand?    If so, that's a major upsidedown change.

 

And it would seem to raise other questions like -- can Thailand impose a Thailand tax on tax-exempt or tax deferred earnings received in foreign countries but not necessarily imported to Thailand, such as with USA-based IRA and Roth IRA accounts (where you'd have no U.S.-based tax offset, except for RMD distributions).

 

And then that would seem to leave in limbo the question of accrued savings held overseas... The prior plan had a tax exemption for prior savings that would be imported here. But under this plan, would they consider bringing past savings into Thailand "new" income at the point the funds are brought in?

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

8 minutes ago, sqwakvfr said:

As an American I have had earned income while working in other countries.  At the time IRS rules allowed me to have almost $100,000 of that income exluded from US Income taxes. It is known as the exclusionary rule.  

 

But I think that U.S. tax provision is only applicable to people who are employed and have foreign source income, and doesn't apply at all to the retired population folks.

 

[connda]

I don't think my US banks or brokerage, or my previous employers are going to share my financial information with Thailand.

Now - if Thailand wishes to extend the benefits of permanent residency to me?  That would be different.  Or even better - extend a path to citizenship. 
Then 🇹🇭 Prathet thai ruam lueat nuea chat chuea thai 🇹🇭

[BigBruv]

On the plus side, if implemented sufficiently aggressively, this will clear out an awful lot of 'farang riff raff' (tm).

 

If so, I might actually move out there full time : )

[gamb00ler]

2 hours ago, yang123 said:

Double Taxation Agreements to be nixed?

The tax treaties generally say nothing about remittance.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 minute ago, connda said:

I don't think my US banks or brokerage, or my previous employers are going to share my financial information with Thailand.

Now - if Thailand wishes to extend the benefits of permanent residency to me?  That would be different.  Or even better - extend a path to citizenship. 
Then 🇹🇭 Prathet thai ruam lueat nuea chat chuea thai 🇹🇭

 

I was going to ask... what benefits would the TH government be providing in exchange for taxing my worldwide income?

 

Option to join the national health system? Thai citizen rates for national parks and such.... Or, more likely... NOTHING!   🙂

 

[AreYouGerman]

3 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

I was going to ask... what benefits would the TH government be providing in exchange for taxing my worldwide income?

 

Option to join the national health system? Thai citizen rates for national parks and such.... Or, more likely... NOTHING!   🙂

 

 

You will be allowed to continue to beg for 1 year extensions!

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

One of the peculiar things about living here is there rarely seems to be a time where, as an expat, you can just sit back and relax and not have to worry about the locals being up to some monkey business that's going to have some major impact on your life.

 

If it's not messing about with taxation, then it's messing about with/changing the rules and regs for Immigration, health insurance requirements, or other stuff. Usually accompanied by long periods of time where no one actually knows or is clear on just what they're actually going to do with floated proposals.

 

I'd really prefer, they just leave folks alone and stop messing!

 

[IvorBiggun2]

Sod all this toing and froing. I'll just wait for the movie to come out.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

5 minutes ago, AreYouGerman said:

 

You will be allowed to continue to beg for 1 year extensions!

 

... but for married folks (half kidding here) only if you bring along 23 5x7 size color photos showing you and your wife and your family and your neighbors in various groupings and arranged in various poses in each of the various rooms of one's home, including sitting on the bed, and out front showing your street address... and all those must be pasted portrait style on A4 paper, no staples!

 

[BigBruv]

8 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

I was going to ask... what benefits would the TH government be providing in exchange for taxing my worldwide income?

 

Option to join the national health system? Thai citizen rates for national parks and such.... Or, more likely... NOTHING!   🙂

 

 

Instead ask yourself - what benefits do the TH government get from you being here?

 

Likely... NOTHING!   🙂

 

 

[connda]

3 hours ago, johng said:

That seems totally unworkable  crazy and unjust !

Can't wait until 2025:
Let The Games Begin - Release The Tax Hounds!!!

[FruitPudding]

15 minutes ago, BigBruv said:

On the plus side, if implemented sufficiently aggressively, this will clear out an awful lot of 'farang riff raff' (tm).

 

If so, I might actually move out there full time : )

 

What about the locals??

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

6 minutes ago, BigBruv said:

 

Instead ask yourself - what benefits do the TH government get from you being here?

 

Likely... NOTHING!   🙂

 

 

Financial support for my Thai wife and (indirectly) her entire family that ensures they won't be impoverished, at least during my lifetime... Payments to my Thai landlord as a stable and responsible long-term tenant. Thai VAT on everything taxable I buy here, etc etc. Spending more at local Thai businesses (and indirectly supporting their employees) than the average Thai citizen/family does.

 

I would say all of that doesn't add up to nothing.

 

 

[FruitPudding]

17 minutes ago, connda said:

I don't think my US banks or brokerage, or my previous employers are going to share my financial information with Thailand.

🇹🇭 

 

Why not?

 

My European broker sends my figures every year

[Celsius]

50 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

2. The 1 billion baht platform reference refers to their intention to tax online vendors who have that level of income...

 

If that is the case I am sure this is another typo mistake by BP

 

Million, not billion,

[gamb00ler]

1 hour ago, JimGant said:

Why's that? The US already taxes my worldwide income. If Thailand wants a piece of the pie, their share, per the Double Taxation Agreement, will be a credit against my US taxation. Except for a very few outlier scenarios, there will be no change in my total annual tax bill under this new policy.

Not what I would consider an outlier would be the possibility that TRD would seek to tax income earned inside a Roth account in the year of earning.  The US IRS does something similar when they ignore the 'tax exempt' status of a Canadian Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) for Canadian expats living in the USA.  In such a situation the Canada-US DTA doesn't help because there is no Canadian tax that could be reduced by a credit for having paid US tax on that income.  US taxpayers who are tax residents in Thailand would suffer the same fate on Roth account income.

[BigBruv]

1 minute ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Financial support for my Thai wife and (indirectly) her entire family that ensures they won't be impoverished, at least during my lifetime... Payments to my Thai landlord. Thai VAT on everything I buy here, etc etc. Spending more at local Thai businesses (and indirectly their employees) than the average Thai citizen/family does.

 

 

 

So, from a Thai Govt policy maker's view ipretty much NOTHING!   🙂

 

They want high spending people to visit Thailand - to get them in they first have to flush out the sweaty chang/singha vest, cargo shorts and flip flop crew.

 

 

[connda]

1 hour ago, AreYouGerman said:

But in all fairness, isn't it fair that you give Thailand a fair share of you money for allowing you stay in their country? You should actually ask to have this applied retroactively!

I already do.  I pay 7% on everything I purchase like every other Thai.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

14 minutes ago, gamb00ler said:

Not what I would consider an outlier would be the possibility that TRD would seek to tax income earned inside a Roth account in the year of earning.  The US IRS does something similar when they ignore the 'tax exempt' status of a Canadian Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) for Canadian expats living in the USA.  In such a situation the Canada-US DTA doesn't help because there is no Canadian tax that could be reduced by a credit for having paid US tax on that income.

 

Ya, I raised the question above of what would happen with tax-free / tax deferred earnings from accounts such as the IRA and Roth IRA accounts in the U.S., which can accrue earnings for years without being taxed by the U.S. (in the case of Roth, in perpetuity, in the case of IRAs, until you reach an age into your 70s...

 

If they tried to start Thai taxing those kinds of tax free/tax deferred retirement accounts held abroad, it would seriously make me reconsider my future plans for staying here.

 

Those, AFAIK, aren't exempted by the current US-Thai tax treaty, unlike things like Social Security and government pensions, which I'd assume would still remain off-limits to the Thais because of them being specifically excluded from Thai taxation under the terms of the treaty.

 

 

 

 

[AreYouGerman]

22 minutes ago, connda said:

I don't think my US banks or brokerage, or my previous employers are going to share my financial information with Thailand.

 

Depending on which residency address you provided to your bank/brokerage and what the DTA between the countries of your bank/brokerage and Thailand says. Many DTAs are just in place to hide the AEOIs (Automatic Exchange Of Information).

 

Thailand recently applied CRS to all banks and so on which is the first step into the AEOIs in the direction of TH -> Your country. And the next step is most likely to get the AEOIs from other countries into Thailand going which means your bank/broker outside of Thailand will submit data to Thailand, automatically.

[Misty]

24 minutes ago, connda said:

I don't think my US banks or brokerage, or my previous employers are going to share my financial information with Thailand.

Now - if Thailand wishes to extend the benefits of permanent residency to me?  That would be different.  Or even better - extend a path to citizenship. 
Then 🇹🇭 Prathet thai ruam lueat nuea chat chuea thai 🇹🇭

Under the US-Thai FATCA intergovernmental agreement signed in Mar 2016 unfortunately the ground work was laid to share individual’s financial information with Thailand

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 minutes ago, BigBruv said:

 

 

So, from a Thai Govt policy maker's view ipretty much NOTHING!   🙂

 

They want high spending people to visit Thailand - to get them in they first have to flush out the sweaty chang/singha vest, cargo shorts and flip flop crew.

 

 

 

 

I wouldn't know about that, since I don't -- and never have -- fit into any of those categories.

 

[BigBruv]

1 minute ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

 

I wouldn't know about that, since I don't -- and never have -- fit into any of those categories.

 

 

Nor the 'high net worth' category they're aiming for

[Misty]

1 minute ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Ya, I raised the question above of what would happen with tax-free / tax deferred earnings from accounts such as the IRA and Roth IRA accounts in the U.S., which can accrue earnings for years without being taxed by the U.S. (in the case of Roth, in perpetuity, in the case of IRAs, until you reach an age into your 70s...

 

 

Yup ,wondering the same. I think some DTAs might address how to handle IRAs, Roth’s etc but my guess is the current US Thai DTA does not. Wouldn’t have been relevant at the time it was negotiated. Maybe some tax expert can clarify.

[connda]

Next up!  Taxing tax-residents Unrealized Gains.  Let's see just how greedy the pigs really are. 

 

That would get rid of the "Well-heeled Wealthy Foreigners" whom the Thai elites so desperately wish to attract.  I think the concept of taxing wealthy foreigners foreign income is going to be the straw breaking the camel's back.  You earn a few cool million USD a year and live in Thailand?  And Thailand wants to tax your few cool million USD earned overseas based on the Thai tax code?  Goodbye "Well-heeled Wealthy Farang." 

[freeworld]

41 minutes ago, gamb00ler said:

The tax treaties generally say nothing about remittance.

They dont need to, it is just a mechanism and rules how to treat income taxation and avoid double taxation. Taxes are based on the countries taxation laws.

[FruitPudding]

28 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Financial support for my Thai wife and (indirectly) her entire family that ensures they won't be impoverished, at least during my lifetime... Payments to my Thai landlord as a stable and responsible long-term tenant. Thai VAT on everything taxable I buy here, etc etc. Spending more at local Thai businesses (and indirectly supporting their employees) than the average Thai citizen/family does.

 

I would say all of that doesn't add up to nothing.

 

 

Yes, but they don't care about anything. 

[FruitPudding]

9 minutes ago, connda said:

Next up!  Taxing tax-residents Unrealized Gains.  Let's see just how greedy the pigs really are. 

 

That would get rid of the "Well-heeled Wealthy Foreigners" whom the Thai elites so desperately wish to attract.  I think the concept of taxing wealthy foreigners foreign income is going to be the straw breaking the camel's back.  You earn a few cool million USD a year and live in Thailand?  And Thailand wants to tax your few cool million USD earned overseas based on the Thai tax code?  Goodbye "Well-heeled Wealthy Farang." 

 

Exactly 

 

Like, do they think the place is really worth it?