Window Seat for Sleeping.

[watgate]

Seeing as how their is a good possibility foreigners residing in Thailand for more then 180 days will have to do a thai tax return for their personal income and investments, do you think it is important to obtain a tax id # now? If this proposal to tax foreigners income and investments is passed and comes into law, their will be a mad dash by 1000's of expats to obtain a tax id # in order to comply with the thai tax Revenue Dept regulations and requirements to file a thai tax return. If one does obtain a tax id now and this tax scheme is not passed, then so be it, and one will be out a few thousand baht for obtaining a tax id now. But, if an expat  waits to see if the tax proposal is eventually passed into law, then one will have to get into the queue, along with 1000's of other expats, in order to apply and obtain a thai tax id # from the thai Revenue Dept should the tax proposal be passed into law. As they say in Thailand up to you.

Edited 12 hours ago by watgate
corrected a grammatical error

[gamb00ler]

3 hours ago, watgate said:

If one does obtain a tax id now and this tax scheme is not passed, then so be it, and one will be out a few thousand baht for obtaining a tax id now.

I don't follow your logic in this statement.

 

I have lived in LOS for 4 years and never filed taxes here.  No income was remitted in the same year as it was earned.

 

I got a tax ID so I could open a bank account that earned much better interest than the typical savings account.  I spent only about 15 minutes in the TRD office to get my free Thai tax ID.  Having a Thai tax ID has not cost me anything.  It does save me the trouble of filing a yearly tax form to request a refund of tax withheld from bank interest payments.

Edited 8 hours ago by gamb00ler

[Gottfrid]

3 hours ago, watgate said:

and one will be out a few thousand baht for obtaining a tax id now

Are you using an agent 😉 Obtaining a TIN is free.

[NoDisplayName]

3 hours ago, watgate said:

one will be out a few thousand baht for obtaining a tax id now.

 

That's an agent fee for doing something you can easily do yourself.

 

Some posters report their particular local tax office refused, saying you don't need to file.  Lazy or less competent office staff may not want to deal with you.

 

Explain you need a TIN to file tax returns in order to have withheld tax on interest and dividends refunded.

[gamb00ler]

6 hours ago, NoDisplayName said:

Explain you need a TIN to file tax returns in order to have withheld tax on interest and dividends refunded.

Or.... to give the banks your Thai tax ID and ask them to stop the withholding.  Unfortunately, I think you cannot stop the withholding of tax from interest earned on fixed deposit accounts.