Expert Urges Government To Raise Tax For Foreign Condo Buyers

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There was an article that was posted on the KSE website about 3 weeks ago titled "Expert Urges Government To Raise Tax For Foreign Condo Buyers". 
 

The concerning part is the following info from that article:

 

Quote

Dr. Sopon further mentioned that it is obvious that foreigners have a strong preference for buying condominiums in Thailand. Therefore, AREA proposes to the government under Paetongtarn Shinawatra to regulate the purchase of real estate by foreigners by imposing higher taxes on foreign buyers than on Thai nationals, as is common practice in many countries.

 

He proposed four types of property taxes on foreigners based on market transaction prices (rather than government-assessed values) to raise revenue to boost the economy and increase funds for national development:

 

Purchase tax or transfer tax: Levied at the Land Department on transactions, with a tax rate of 10-20 percent or 100,000 to 200,000 baht per million baht.

 

Property Tax: With a tax rate of 1 percent or 10,000 baht per million baht.

 

Capital gains tax on resale: With a tax rate of 10-20 percent or 100,000 to 200,000 baht per million baht.

Inheritance tax: Proposed at a rate of 10 percent of the market value of the estate or 100,000 baht per million baht.

If any of these 4 proposed taxes get imposed then it will bring about a screeching halt to foreigner condo purchases in Thailand. It could also be another reason to cause a mass exodus of foreigners already living in Thailand. 
 

Thailand has seen a recent uptick in condo sales to Chinese and Russian buyers over the last two years, people who might not care so much about the taxes because many of those buyers were just trying to escape their own country. But that is likely to have already largely stopped. The number of Russians flooding into Thailand to buy property and avoid the war in Russia has probably steeply declined already. And the Chinese economy is in trouble, so the number of new Chinese condo buyers has presumably also plummeted. 
 

The problem with all this new taxation on property is that it would also affect all the foreigners who have already bought condos in Thailand in the past. This would be largely unfair. They should be grandfathered under the old laws because they bought prior to any of the newly proposed property tax laws on foreigners. 
 

Who knows how realistic any of this is. But if they start taxing foreigners on their worldwide income, and then on condo ownership, it's going to be devastating to the local economy as all that foreign money finds much greener pastures elsewhere. 

[phetphet]

I suggest Dr. Sopon is living in some fantasy land.

 

Foreigners only have a preference for buying condos as it's the only legal way to own property here. 

 

Make it too expensive and the condo market will collapse in a heartbeat.