Don’t kill the golden goose! Tax reforms may drive away expats

[flexomike]

5 minutes ago, chiang mai said:

 

Do you have a problem with me thinking something or having a particular belief?

 

"FWIW I think an AVERAGE spend of 65k per month across all long stay visa holders is far too high". 

 

And I suppose you do understand how averages work, don't you! In order to have an average of 65k, there would be highs and lows that went well above and well below that figure in order to arrive at an average of 65k. That would include the circle of people you know and a lot of pensioners on the maximum UK State Pension of 221 Pounds per week, which is only 41k baht per month.

Its all about the quality of life. I prefer to do whatever I want and live my life to the fullest.

[Expat68]

24 minutes ago, flexomike said:

Well of course the country doesn't run on expats, but a lot of small communities are greatly helped by the money that they spend, mom and pop shops hiring laborers supporting all the businesses in the neighborhood. Thailand as a country will not be hurt by expats departing but a lot of people will be. I have several people that I hire on a regular basis and if I leave they loose my financial input.

They forget when COVID was at its highest the communities relied on expats money

[metisdead]

Some inflammatory bickering posts have been removed:

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[Eudaimonia]

7 hours ago, WhatsNext said:

Thai income tax is actually pretty high, if you have over 1 million THB per year, it already is 25% and goes up to 35% in the last bracket. It's more than some EU member states. 

 

Oh, Thailand will be way worse than any country in the EU. At least for those of us financing our retirement with investments.

 

Normal countries allow you to use capital losses to offset capital gains. This means that if you lose money on one investment, you can subtract that loss from your profits on other assets, lowering the amount of tax. For example, if you make 10,000 EUR in profit but lose 6,000 EUR on another investment, you would only pay taxes on the remaining 4,000 EUR, which is your net gain.

 

In Thailand, if you lose money on one investment, you cannot use losses to reduce the taxes you owe on profits from other investments. If you make a profit of 1 million baht on one investment but lose 950,000 baht on another, you still pay tax on the entire 1 million, as if no loss occurred.

 

Because of this, the effective tax rate in Thailand can easily be over 35%, 50%, or even over 100%.

[MarkBR]

2 hours ago, flexomike said:

Well of course the country doesn't run on expats, but a lot of small communities are greatly helped by the money that they spend, mom and pop shops hiring laborers supporting all the businesses in the neighborhood. Thailand as a country will not be hurt by expats departing but a lot of people will be. I have several people that I hire on a regular basis and if I leave they loose my financial input.

Agreed, the problem is those at the top care not one iota about the people below them in the society hierarchy and that includes farang.

[Klonko]

4 hours ago, ukrules said:

 

That's not going to happen, it's pretty much a global thing with perhaps one notable exception where they genuinely believe they're special and tax their citizens globally regardless of residency.

 

Unfortunately the <180 day or half year rule is not a generally accepted principle. E.g. my home country applies the concept of main residence irrespective of time spent, and I think Germany starts taxing  > 3 months (consecutive?) stays.