Online Business

[sciack]

Hello,

I am Italian and I live in Thailand about all the time, I just go back 2 times a year for visa issues and seeing relatives... I have a good business online with some websites. I was thinking of moving all my business on a bank account here in Thailand. Should I have to open a company here? Should I pay taxes? If so how? Consider my websites are international and the servers are in USA at this moment, customers are from all over the world. At the moement I have all my business passing thourgh a italian bank and I have credit cards also like american express, black mastercard, I do not want to lose all of this. I want to have the same here in Thailand. What can you suggest? Is it enough for a bank to see a high income every month to give me some kind of credit cards or should they need to see i have a company and pay taxes? How does it work? thanks.

regards

[SunbeltAsiaExpert]

In order to have company bank accounts here in Thailand you must have a company setup here in Thailand and in order to set up a corporate bank account, most banks require the authorized signatory of the company (which would be you) to have a work permit from that same company in order to make withdrawals and/or sign cheques. The good thing about setting up a company here in Thailand is that you may no longer need to travel in order to take care of visa issues as your visa and work permit will be renewable here in Thailand (this would be determined by the government officials, with your other supporting documents and information being taken into consideration).

In order to apply for the Non-Immigrant “B” Visa from the Immigration (also known as “Extension of Stays based on Business”), apart from the basic requirements, usually Immigration would request the applicant to submit/show the Supporting Company’s annual audit and financial statements. However, for newly established companies there are occasions where this request may be exempted and it would be at the discretion of the Officer on the basis of the review of the remaining criteria such as the company’s filing of monthly withholding tax, monthly vat, social funds, etc.

As far as filing and paying taxes, when you set up a company here you will be issued a personal tax ID number and a corporate tax ID number and will then pay personal withholding taxes on a monthly basis. There is no need to move your sites to a different server as the US server will inevitably be less expensive and much better performing than a Thai server. If you open a company here in Thailand you do not need to close your Italian bank account so as long as you do not close your Italian bank you should be able to keep all of your credit cards. Thai banks do not have the same rules and regulations as foreign banks but you would need a Thai corporation and subsequent bank account if you would like to obtain credit cards issued from Thai banks. In order to get even a personal credit card from a Thai bank you will almost assuredly need to provide the details from your work permit and your personal tax filing receipts for at least 3 months and for some banks they will want to see at least one year of tax payment receipts.

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