1 minute ago, Mike Lister said:

FWIW STWW, these discussions historically have been held on a different level, rather than pictures of animals and quoting dictionary definitions of simple words.

Just because you have historically discussed things in one way doesn’t make them the correct way.

 

If you can’t see the reasons for the analogy then you probably can’t see why (it seems) your discussions have drawn incorrect conclusions and why dictionaries are required.

 

There are a group of people (sovereign citizens) who have become equally misinformed 

3 minutes ago, Mike Lister said:

We disagree completely on your definition that income can never become savings

It is not my definition. 
It is the definition of the TRD

You can disagree as much as you like with their definition but see how much they care.

2 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

Just because you have historically discussed things in one way doesn’t make them the correct way.

 

If you can’t see the reasons for the analogy then you probably can’t see why (it seems) your discussions have drawn incorrect conclusions and why dictionaries are required.

 

There are a group of people (sovereign citizens) who have become equally misinformed 

These are not my discussions, they are discussions by anyone interested in and knowledgeable about tax. If they have drawn incorrect conclusions, which I 'm certain they must have from time to time, I blame to the professional tax consultants, CPA's and other financial services experts rather than any pictures of bears or  the lack of dictionary quotes.

1 hour ago, Mike Lister said:

These are not my discussions, they are discussions by anyone interested in and knowledgeable about tax. If they have drawn incorrect conclusions, which I 'm certain they must have from time to time, I blame to the professional tax consultants, CPA's and other financial services experts

You should not try to shift the responsibility for misinformation.

If you promote misinformation you are at least equally, if not more, responsible

It is quite possible that you or the “professional tax consultants, CPA's and other financial services experts” have been lazy in reporting the conclusions drawn or have fallen foul of the Chinese whisper syndrome.

 

to repeat my self but to add a little that I assumed to be self evident 

According to the TRD it is always income it never becomes savings when remitted to Thailand, 

According to the TRD it has always been income it never becomes savings when remitted to Thailand, 

According to the TRD it will always have been income it never becomes savings when remitted to Thailand, 

 

Once remitted, assessed and taxed if applicable by the TRD it can be anything you like

12 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

@sometimewoodworker Your understanding of the issues discussed in these tax threads has somehow become distorted.

 

Savings (as used in these threads) are the portion of income left after you and the government come to an understanding of what you owe them.  By paying the tax, you completely remove the government's shadow from those funds and you can spend, invest or save them however you wish.  Those funds become the taxpayer's savings.  In the taxpayer's view those remaining funds are net income.  But, in these threads we use the word income from the viewpoint of the taxing authority... not the taxpayer.  From the TRD's point of view, the taxpayer's net income is savings and thus beyond their reach.

 

In my post I said: 

If TRD only gets second dibs on those funds it is forced to accept that USA's taxation has in part or in whole converted your income to savings.

 

In the situation my comments describe, TRD will not be getting any tax revenue on some part (or perhaps any) of the funds where the US has primary (first dibs) taxing authority.  TRD can try to tax those funds but the US taxpayer can use a tax credit to reduce or eliminate TRD's claimed tax (as per the DTA).  Thus in effect those already taxed funds are now the taxpayer's savings as far as TRD is concerned.

 

If TRD's claimed tax is greater than the US tax already paid, they will of course be entitled to collect that amount.

 

 

 

I believe this is the correct interpretation based upon a normal understanding of taxation and how DTAs work. 

 

I do hold out the possibility that the TRD may have a differing interpretation to some extent, but not to the degree that it negates the basic aspect of the DTA.

 

One issue with the US-Thailand DTA is that it gives Thailand exclusive right (except with respect to the saving clause) to tax private pensions and pensions derived from employment by Federal, state and local governmental entities. One would not be entitled to a credit for US tax paid against Thai taxes on such pensions if remitted to Thailand under the rules currently in force. At least that's how I see it.

59 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

You should not try to shift the responsibility for misinformation.

If you promote misinformation you are at least equally, if not more, responsible

It is quite possible that you or the “professional tax consultants, CPA's and other financial services experts” have been lazy in reporting the conclusions drawn or have fallen foul of the Chinese whisper syndrome.

 

to repeat my self but to add a little that I assumed to be self evident 

According to the TRD it is always income it never becomes savings when remitted to Thailand, 

According to the TRD it has always been income it never becomes savings when remitted to Thailand, 

According to the TRD it will always have been income it never becomes savings when remitted to Thailand, 

 

Once remitted, assessed and taxed if applicable by the TRD it can be anything you like

It's seriously unhelpful to play the sorts of words game you're playing, it doesn't help anyone and only further confuses people who have no knowledge of finance or tax.

 

Every transfer of funds from overseas is a remittance and by definition is considered to be remitted funds.  Each is income, until it is assessed for tax or otherwise assessed. The fact that exempt income is remitted and is considered income in your world, because it hasn't been assessed, it's even more unhelpful to everyone's understanding.

 

In the terminology and parlance of the discussions in this thread, it has been sufficient to distinguish between income and savings, one being potentially assessable to tax, the other not. That you want to refine that verbiage to absolute perfection, is nice for you but unhelpful for most other people. Exactly how this exchange of two pages has improved the quality or content of the debate on tax and members understandings of the issues, is known only to you.

 

I'll leave you to placing emoji's, as is your style. 

4 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

Heads up We are not living under Worldwide Taxation rules we are living under (discussing) Thailand’s taxation rules 

 

You could possibly argue that Thailand treated income (they did not but you could argue the point) in that way prior to 1/1/2024. In fact they just regarded non current years income as non assessable income

 

your instance of using the word savings to refer to what was taxed income is a disingenuous way of referring to it and leads to a misunderstanding and incorrect belief that you can bring in any amount of ”savings” (your term) and have zero tax liability.
 

This is because Thailand does not consider remittances of savings as taxable.

However Thailand does (now) tax remittances of income (DTAs allowing )(irrespective of when earned post 1/1/2024) as taxable

 

you could equally call one of these an ideal household pet

 

but if you do and you and others believe you, then don’t be surprised when you and your friends become live “pet food” 

 

I trust you can now see exactly why any redefinition of income as savings is foolish and promotes misunderstanding.

You could call it ‘saved income’ but by the definition that is important Thailand’s taxation rules it is always and forever income when remitted to Thailand. 
 

After it’s remitted and assessed for taxation it can become anything you like. Beer seems quite popular 🙂 

 

 

Okay.  I get it now.  "Savings" is not a thing in finance.  The hundreds of thousands of pages of IRS regs don't reference "savings" unless talking about interest from bank savings accounts or contributions to health savings funds, etc.

 

That's fine for the IRS, as they generally are taxing income at the source.  All the money (or assets) you have came into your possession at some time as income.  For the most part, income is assessed when you gain control over it, and it's assessed and taxed then.  What you do with it later is mostly irrelevant....spend it, save it, invest it........it still had an original source as income.

 

How and where you hold it is unimportant in general.  We can comangle the funds, put all our money in one bucket and it doesn't matter.  Everything is/was assessed when we got it.  So sure, we can colloquially call it "savings", but it's still income from salary or interest or pension or lottery winnings or child support or tax refund or inheritance or gift or whatever.  Taxing "savings" would be what we consider a wealth tax.

 

Our problem now is a foreign government wants to use a remittance system.  Without a fully-staffed FBI forensic team with unlimited budget and access to financial databases, how will it be possible at the end of the year to trace the source of each individual remittance and link it to one discrete transaction for purpose of assessing tax liability?

 

If I have direct deposit of a pension into a Thai bank it's possible.  But if I send $1000 via Wise, what did I send out of the big bucket of comingled funds?

 

I expect TRD will continue to rely on self-assessment and will find that despite an increased number of expat filings, their take won't increase, and may in fact decrease for obvious reasons.

8 minutes ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

Okay.  I get it now.  "Savings" is not a thing in finance.  The hundreds of thousands of pages of IRS regs don't reference "savings" unless talking about interest from bank savings accounts or contributions to health savings funds, etc.

 

That's fine for the IRS, as they generally are taxing income at the source.  All the money (or assets) you have came into your possession at some time as income.  For the most part, income is assessed when you gain control over it, and it's assessed and taxed then.  What you do with it later is mostly irrelevant....spend it, save it, invest it........it still had an original source as income.

 

How and where you hold it is unimportant in general.  We can comangle the funds, put all our money in one bucket and it doesn't matter.  Everything is/was assessed when we got it.  So sure, we can colloquially call it "savings", but it's still income from salary or interest or pension or lottery winnings or child support or tax refund or inheritance or gift or whatever.  Taxing "savings" would be what we consider a wealth tax.

 

Our problem now is a foreign government wants to use a remittance system.  Without a fully-staffed FBI forensic team with unlimited budget and access to financial databases, how will it be possible at the end of the year to trace the source of each individual remittance and link it to one discrete transaction for purpose of assessing tax liability?

 

If I have direct deposit of a pension into a Thai bank it's possible.  But if I send $1000 via Wise, what did I send out of the big bucket of comingled funds?

 

I expect TRD will continue to rely on self-assessment and will find that despite an increased number of expat filings, their take won't increase, and may in fact decrease for obvious reasons.

 

At the technical level that may be so, but in practical terms, Por 162 means that "Offshore-sourced income received before 1 January 2024 can be brought into Thailand on or after 1 January 2024 without being subject to Thai personal income tax".

 

https://insightplus.bakermckenzie.com/bm/tax/thailand-offshore-sourced-income-received-before-1-january-2024-can-be-brought-into-thailand-in-2024-or-later-without-being-subject-to-thai-personal-income-tax

 

Throughout the over 20,000 + posts on the subject of tax, over the past 8 months,  that has been deemed for discussion purposes, to be savings and that is the way members understand things. To now revert to more perfect terminology and say there is no such thing as savings and that everything is income, will confuse more people than it helps.

 

26 minutes ago, Mike Lister said:

 

At the technical level that may be so, but in practical terms, Por 162 means that "Offshore-sourced income received before 1 January 2024 can be brought into Thailand on or after 1 January 2024 without being subject to Thai personal income tax".

 

https://insightplus.bakermckenzie.com/bm/tax/thailand-offshore-sourced-income-received-before-1-january-2024-can-be-brought-into-thailand-in-2024-or-later-without-being-subject-to-thai-personal-income-tax

 

Throughout the over 20,000 + posts on the subject of tax, over the past 8 months,  that has been deemed for discussion purposes, to be savings and that is the way members understand things. To now revert to more perfect terminology and say there is no such thing as savings and that everything is income, will confuse more people than it helps.

 

 

I scanned that link about offshore sourced income.

The word "savings" appears exactly zero times.

The word "income" appears 32 times.

 

This is the old "renew my visa" picking of nits.  Yes, we all know the original visa has expired, and immigration knows the visa has expired, but we AND immigration often call an "extension of permission of stay based on non-immigration status for purpose of retirement".........renewing or extending a visa.  We're not in (tax) court, and we know what the speaker means.  And there's always a poster that has to, you know, the thing.

 

Same-same at the TRD office.  When filing tax, the official may ask about remittances, and then inquire as to whether the remitted funds were salary or pension or savings.  They always (as far as I know) accept a self-assessment of "savings" in the colloquial usage.

 

As with the IRS, the English version TRD website under PIT only uses the word "savings" one time, and that in reference to savings account interest.

 

I'ma sayin' I understand that technically "savings" does not exist in a financial sense, but that "savings" will be used by expats AND TRD officials to refer to non-assessable pre-2024 income.

2 minutes ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

I scanned that link about offshore sourced income.

The word "savings" appears exactly zero times.

The word "income" appears 32 times.

 

This is the old "renew my visa" picking of nits.  Yes, we all know the original visa has expired, and immigration knows the visa has expired, but we AND immigration often call an "extension of permission of stay based on non-immigration status for purpose of retirement".........renewing or extending a visa.  We're not in (tax) court, and we know what the speaker means.  And there's always a poster that has to, you know, the thing.

 

Same-same at the TRD office.  When filing tax, the official may ask about remittances, and then inquire as to whether the remitted funds were salary or pension or savings.  They always (as far as I know) accept a self-assessment of "savings" in the colloquial usage.

 

As with the IRS, the English version TRD website under PIT only uses the word "savings" one time, and that in reference to savings account interest.

 

I'ma sayin' I understand that technically "savings" does not exist in a financial sense, but that "savings" will be used by expats AND TRD officials to refer to non-assessable pre-2024 income.

We agree on those things

2 hours ago, Mike Lister said:

 

Every transfer of funds from overseas is a remittance and by definition is considered to be remitted funds.

Of course it is

2 hours ago, Mike Lister said:

Each is income, until it is assessed for tax or otherwise assessed.

It is not. You decide if it is assessable income, non-assessable income or not income. The TRD may decide to audit you or accept your decisions 

 

2 hours ago, Mike Lister said:

The fact that exempt income is remitted and is considered income in your world, because it hasn't been assessed, it's even more unhelpful to everyone's understanding.

That is not what I have said. Please re-read 

 

2 hours ago, Mike Lister said:

In the terminology and parlance of the discussions in this thread, it has been sufficient to distinguish between income and savings, one being potentially assessable to tax, the other not.

From what you have said it seems that for some reason you do not understand that just because income has been taxed outside Thailand it does not become non-assessable and so immune to Thai assessment and possible taxation. 
 

post 1/1/2024 all income remitted to Thailand whenever earned unless protected by DTAs is assessable. It makes no difference if it has already been taxed. The only difference is that the tax paid outside Thailand reduces the amount of tax the TRD collects due to various DTAs

54 minutes ago, NoDisplayName said:

Okay.  I get it now.  "Savings" is not a thing in finance.  The hundreds of thousands of pages of IRS regs don't reference "savings" unless talking about interest from bank savings accounts or contributions to health savings funds, etc.

 

That's fine for the IRS, as they generally are taxing income at the source.  All the money (or assets) you have came into your possession at some time as income.  For the most part, income is assessed when you gain control over it, and it's assessed and taxed then.  What you do with it later is mostly irrelevant....spend it, save it, invest it........it still had an original source as income.

 

How and where you hold it is unimportant in general.  We can comangle the funds, put all our money in one bucket and it doesn't matter.  Everything is/was assessed when we got it.  So sure, we can colloquially call it "savings", but it's still income from salary or interest or pension or lottery winnings or child support or tax refund or inheritance or gift or whatever.  Taxing "savings" would be what we consider a wealth tax.

That is absolutely correct and is looking at a single countries view

55 minutes ago, NoDisplayName said:

Our problem now is a foreign government wants to use a remittance system.  Without a fully-staffed FBI forensic team with unlimited budget and access to financial databases, how will it be possible at the end of the year to trace the source of each individual remittance and link it to one discrete transaction for purpose of assessing tax liability?

You decide where the money originates, so no forensic team is required. But if the TRD decides to audit your return you will have to prove that funds received are not from income if you haven’t declared them.

 

NB it is your responsibility to prove the source of funds not the DTAs

 

1 hour ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

If I have direct deposit of a pension into a Thai bank it's possible.  But if I send $1000 via Wise, what did I send out of the big bucket of comingled funds?

again it’s up to you to prove the origin

 

due to this exact situation I bed and breakfasted my investments in December 2023

you will find that having more than 1 account provides a reasonably easy way to differentiate money and avoid the problems of commingling 

1 hour ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

I expect TRD will continue to rely on self-assessment and will find that despite an increased number of expat filings, their take won't increase, and may in fact decrease for obvious reasons.

There is no suggestion that they will stop the self reporting. Since the primary goal was (supposedly) to stop the loophole being most visible exploited by rich Thai’s it remains to be seen if the rules will have the desired effect. I posit that the tax being avoided by rich Thai’s is much greater than the foreign tax take

23 minutes ago, NoDisplayName said:

This is the old "renew my visa" picking of nits.  Yes, we all know the original visa has expired, and immigration knows the visa has expired, but we AND immigration often call an "extension of permission of stay based on non-immigration status for purpose of retirement".........renewing or extending a visa.  We're not in (tax) court, and we know what the speaker means.

That in bold is not true and there are significantly different rules for a permission to stay from a visa /non visa entry compared to an extension of a permission to stay. The confusion that has arisen from using the wrong terminology has caused significant hardship to quite a number of people. This is again a subject where correct terminology is important.

 

However this is not the correct thread for an immigration department discussion.

This thread may now hold the record for confusing the most members in the least number of posts, needlessly and pointlessly.

Well.... since TRD doesn't use the term savings to refer to any funds belonging to a taxpayer, we are free to use it as we please.  In our discussions we need a term for funds that TRD no longer cares about and holds no sway over (all taxes due to TRD have been paid).  I think it's just fine if we call those savings

35 minutes ago, gamb00ler said:

Well.... since TRD doesn't use the term savings to refer to any funds belonging to a taxpayer, we are free to use it as we please.  In our discussions we need a term for funds that TRD no longer cares about and holds no sway over (all taxes due to TRD have been paid).  I think it's just fine if we call those savings

After being remitted to Thailand and after the receiver has decided on the designation of the funds and need, or not, to include them on a tax return the naming of those funds is of no consequence, though SWMBO often considers most of them to be hers

7 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

though SWMBO often considers most of them to be hers

.... not to mention the audits I have to endure as well.

13 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

From what you have said it seems that for some reason you do not understand that just because income has been taxed outside Thailand it does not become non-assessable and so immune to Thai assessment and possible taxation. 

 

 

Your understanding of what I understand, needs to better understood!

It's going to be a gong show for everyone that needs to file a 2024 tax return.  I am certainly in no hurry to spend more than 180 days a year in Thailand until this stuff becomes more well understood.  

You could in theory spend less than 180 days in Thailand in 2025 and remmit as much funds as you want tax free, and then come back in 2026 to spend it?

11 minutes ago, thomasfielk said:

You could in theory spend less than 180 days in Thailand in 2025 and remmit as much funds as you want tax free, and then come back in 2026 to spend it?

I personally can't be bothered trying to play those sorts of games.  If I can get away with just living off ATM withdrawals or cash pickups without needed to claim any of that as reportable income I will just do that.  It's still not clear to me if that is possible or not or how they could track it even if it was reportable.

4 minutes ago, shdmn said:

I personally can't be bothered trying to play those sorts of games.  If I can get away with just living off ATM withdrawals or cash pickups without needed to claim any of that as reportable income I will just do that.  It's still not clear to me if that is possible or not or how they could track it even if it was reportable.  Or just come in with a big suitcase full of money.  Yes I know that you are supposed to declare anything over 10k in theory.

It is easily possible but the question is whether they would track you or find out, which seems very unlikely. The key issue for most people is whether they are prepared to file a tax return that doesn't include those transactions or indeed not file at all when technically they maybe should have. If those transactions were limited to just the occasional withdrawal, there's unlikely to be a problem ever. But if you're going to fund your year round existence in Thailand that way, that's probably risky because somebody might ask how you are supporting yourself.

18 minutes ago, thomasfielk said:

You could in theory spend less than 180 days in Thailand in 2025 and remmit as much funds as you want tax free, and then come back in 2026 to spend it?

That is true in practise. 

9 hours ago, shdmn said:

I personally can't be bothered trying to play those sorts of games.  If I can get away with just living off ATM withdrawals or cash pickups without needed to claim any of that as reportable income I will just do that.  It's still not clear to me if that is possible or not or how they could track it even if it was reportable.

If you have a good idea of how much you spend per month you can produce an estimate of how much remittance you will need for a whole year.  That together with the TEDA, income exemptions due to DTA, etc. you should be able to calculate a good approximation or your Thai tax bill.  Then you can decide if the hoops you'll be jumping through instead of paying the tax is worthwhile.

11 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

If you have a good idea of how much you spend per month you can produce an estimate of how much remittance you will need for a whole year.  That together with the TEDA, income exemptions due to DTA, etc. you should be able to calculate a good approximation or your Thai tax bill.  Then you can decide if the hoops you'll be jumping through instead of paying the tax is worthwhile.

 

Using the UK as an example, somebody remitting approx. 1Million THB (let's say it's 50:1 so £20,000) would have a tax liability of approx. 80K if the only allowance they had was the 60K personal allowance + 1st 150K tax free, reducing to 62K if they can claim the 100K for "Business Expenses" allowance 

 

However, most income has been taxed already so you can use the tax you've already paid in the UK as a credit against what you owe in Thailand.  E.g.

1. Income from Pensions, Rent etc... 0% Tax on the 1st £12,570 & 20% tax on the remaining £7,430 = £1,486 (approx. (74K THB) which can be used as a Tax Credit in Thailand so worse case you would have approx. 6K tax to pay
2. Income from Dividends - (IIRC) 8.75% Withheld Tax = £1,750 (approx. 87K THB) - No tax owed. 

 

... Not worth the hassle of having to stay outside of Thailand for >185days unless you enjoy the travelling.

 

Where it would be worth the hassle, is if you plan on bringing in a large chunk of money (e.g. from the sale of your house) that hasn't been taxed so bringing in £250K (approx. 12.5 Million THB) could see you having a Tax Liability of approx. 3.8Million THB, well worth the hassle of making sure to spend <180 days in Thailand. 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Mike Teavee said:

Using the UK as an example, somebody remitting approx. 1Million THB (let's say it's 50:1 so £20,000) would have a tax liability of approx. 80K if the only allowance they had was the 60K personal allowance + 1st 150K tax free, reducing to 62K if they can claim the 100K for "Business Expenses" allowance 

The liability is actually 82,999.2 on 1 million baht remitted

less the U.K. tax paid (if any) on the £ sent

but only if they are not married (+60,000 allowance +30,000 per parent-in-law 

and none of the 1 million was pension (+100,000 allowance)

they are under 65 (over 65 +190,000 allowance)

have no Thai health insurance 

have no Thai life insurance 

 

the expense allowance is universal and already calculated in the 83k

 

so for younger people not getting any pension income with few ties to Thailand 83k tax to pay

On 7/17/2024 at 5:16 PM, gamb00ler said:

Well.... since TRD doesn't use the term savings to refer to any funds belonging to a taxpayer, we are free to use it as we please.  In our discussions we need a term for funds that TRD no longer cares about and holds no sway over (all taxes due to TRD have been paid).  I think it's just fine if we call those savings

Probably the best post of all, in this meandering thread.

5 hours ago, sometimewoodworker said:

The liability is actually 82,999.2 on 1 million baht remitted

less the U.K. tax paid (if any) on the £ sent

but only if they are not married (+60,000 allowance +30,000 per parent-in-law 

and none of the 1 million was pension (+100,000 allowance)

they are under 65 (over 65 +190,000 allowance)

have no Thai health insurance 

have no Thai life insurance 

 

the expense allowance is universal and already calculated in the 83k

 

so for younger people not getting any pension income with few ties to Thailand 83k tax to pay

I think we're in agreement here, only I'm a lot slopier with my numbers 🙂 [Which is actually <82,800 on 84K pm or 1,008,000) 😛 ) Assuming no other allowances

https://ata-outsourcing.com/calculate-your-personal-income-tax/ 

 

Point being that even without additional allowances, 83K pm is not really worth spending 6 months outside of Thailand unless you want to spend time out of Thailand.

 

Personally I'd lose more than that in 3 months rent I'd be paying on my condo while I'm not there so makes no sense to me, but if you're bringing in a large amount of untaxed income (e.g. the 12.5 Million in my example) then it makes absolute sense to do a Hotblack Desiato

 

15 minutes ago, Mike Teavee said:

I think we're in agreement here, only I'm a lot slopier with my numbers 🙂 [Which is actually <82,800 on 84K pm or 1,008,000) 😛 ) Assuming no other allowances

https://ata-outsourcing.com/calculate-your-personal-income-tax/ 

 

Point being that even without additional allowances, 83K pm is not really worth spending 6 months outside of Thailand unless you want to spend time out of Thailand.

 

Personally I'd lose more than that in 3 months rent I'd be paying on my condo while I'm not there so makes no sense to me, but if you're bringing in a large amount of untaxed income (e.g. the 12.5 Million in my example) then it makes absolute sense to do a Hotblack Desiato

 

Can I listen in when you try to explain the HBD option to TRD......I'll pay good money.

Just now, Mike Lister said:

Can I listen in when you try to explain the HBD option to TRD......I'll pay good money.

Only if your Psychic Mike as I'd be Dead that year... Hotblack Desiato is a humanoid and front man for the band Disaster Area. He was incredibly rich, occasionally buying star systems, and once spent a year dead for tax reasons.  😄

 

 

1 minute ago, Mike Teavee said:

Only if your Psychic Mike as I'd be Dead that year... Hotblack Desiato is a humanoid and front man for the band Disaster Area. He was incredibly rich, occasionally buying star systems, and once spent a year dead for tax reasons.  😄

 

 

I've read the Trilogy mainy times, my favorite read of all times.