Social Fund Submissions

[manjara]

I have a Thai company which employs a couple of Thai people. I used it for a while, when I was living in Thailand in order to get a Work permit and Non-immigrant O visa, by paying myself a salary.

It seemed like a good idea at the time of setting it up, and it is still somewhat useful in terms of maintaining a presence in Thailand. My wife gets a salary from the company and has done for some years now, so getting a mortgage in Thailand is not an issue. We have a company car, so we can write off depreciation at least and a company phone, where the calls are treated as business expense.

The problems are that :

- it is so damned expensive to maintain

- according to my accountants, virtually nothing is expensible, especially foreign expenses (e.g. hotel in HK or taxis in UK)

- everything requires a signature on official company paper

- there is virtually no possibility of remotely managing your company banking

All in all I would say it costs me about 250k a year to maintain, excluding the salary costs.

Now that I am not there, I am looking at ways I can reduce the amount of money I spend on it and one of the things which irritates me most is the monthly reporting regime.

I have to submit Withholding tax and Social Fund on a monthly basis, for which my accountants charge me 2500 per month plus 600 baht in travelling fees.

As the details and amounts are EXACTLY THE SAME every month, this is excessive. I suggested that I could submit the amounts once every 6 months, however their response was that I could end up being prosecuted and go to jail, therefore I have to submit every month.

Does anyone know if it is difficult to submit these documents and charges and how I could do it remotely? I don't mind even submitting in advance for a year, if that was possible.

[nakachalet]

why should a businessman be complaining about monthly business expense of about 100 usd for accountant....?

and it is only 100 usd....

some people ditched out more than that for tips.... in hkg .... lol

right manjara.... ?

Edited October 9, 2009 by nakachalet

[TerryLH]

You might be able to have the money taken directly from your bank account.

I know that can be done for a single payer, paying their own soc sec outside of employment.

Of course your accountant will likely want his fee for monitoring the account and making sure the receipt is recorded etc etc...