Trading In Stocks & Shares

[Penkoprod]

I know and understand most of the caveats involved with share trading, having dabbled in it in my home country.

But are there any rules specific to trading in Thailand? Things like needing a work permit, not being able to have the shares in your own name, but they must be in a Thai's name or a company formed (of which a non Thai is the minority) etc, etc? You know....the usual hoops to jump through, in order to live in Thailand

Or is it just a case of sitting in front of your computer screen, buying and selling shares (paying taxes on profits????) on just about any type of visa?

Penkoprod

[mokwit]

2 main things are that you need to buy the Foreign or better NVDR type share to receive distributions such as dividends and you need to transfer money from overseas to your broker account if ease of repatriation is an issue , otherwise in practice it is as you described. I doubt that the authorities would regard investing in SET as 'work'. Capital gains are tax free but there may be a situation where they could be regarded as 'earnings'.

[chiangmaibruce]

There is no mesh of rules to navigate through but it would certainly pay to do some Thai-specific homework before you start trading ... You might well find the information contained in the following book to be helpful:

Your Investment Guide to Thailand, Silkworms Books, 2010

It can be obtained from various bookstores or direct from the publisher at www.silkwormbooks.com

[wordchild]

Good advice above if you are talking about trading the Thai market. There are also no particular rules (as far as i am aware) that would stop you trading other world markets from Thailand through an offshore broker or even the same broker/brokers that you have used in your home country in the past. You can even use offshore brokers to trade the Thai market , and there maybe some advantages in doing this, but it will be more expensive as they will need to use a local SET registered broker as agent. If you base your portfolio offshore then there should be no Thai taxation issues; but, as has been said above, in any event, there is no capital gains tax due in Thailand on gains made on Thai stock market transactions (other types of transactions can be subject to CGT) . There is also no further taxation on dividends from SET listed companies after the 10% witholding tax deducted at source.

Again if you want to recieve the dividend very important that you only buy foreign reg stock or buy local stock and have the broker convert to NVDR form.

Edited May 5, 2010 by wordchild

[Time Traveller]

Regarding capital gains tax exemption on stock market trades. This is only the case for individual investors. If you are trading thru a company then capital gains are liable for tax. Secondly, NVDR and the actual shares (foreign or local) are treated differently for the purposes of tax. NVDRs do not come with any tax credits. This is meaningful if you submit tax returns in thailand or the company that you invest in is eligible for BOI tax exemption. In the latter case NVDRs do not count for tax exemption so you'll end up paying 10% (withholding) tax.

Edited May 7, 2010 by Time Traveller

[humbug]

no specific rules on the thai market, very very simple

any tax will be deducted before it reaches your account, in an individuals case this would be only for dividends as an individual which is currently 10% as an individual trading on thai stocks there are no capital gains tax in thailand

there are also no need for work permits to trade as an individual, sorry to dissapoint some, who want anything so menia to be branded as illegal as you dont have a work permit, trading stocks as an individual is not classed as any form of a job, if it were, you would be taxed at source on all your earnings by the exchange which you are not

trading stocks by an individual is treated as a risk and as such using your savings as investment is not treated a s a job therefore no need to have any specific visas to trade thai stocks

[humbug]

trading and opening accounts in thailand is very simple

but dont follow the thais who invest in speculative and bankrupt stocks, yes there volatility is sometimes 10% 20% 50% in a day, and most thais will always look out for these stocks, but very quickly it turns to tears as suddenly there are huge marging forced sales and within a matter a days the stock drops by 90% and because of the daily floor limits you just cannot sell, thats is the majority of why thais lose so much on the thai markets,

there are plently of good growth stocks in good sectors like food and resources paying good solid longterm dividends, the thai market does pay is some instance very attractive dividends

the platforms are very simple, they use java and the news flows are ok, most is in thai so no need to worry and also the thai news flows are by the post and manager 2 of the worst for corrupt and bad news, for free english daily research papers, there isnt much only really kimeng which is a little to flowery in its a sssessment

phatra has always been noted for its excellent research and bualuang is ok a little better than kimeng but not as good as phatra's research

[Penkoprod]

Thanks to all that replied ......extremely helpful

Thanks