Claiming tax paid on interest

[Spleen]

A time deposit n have in BKK bank matures in a couple of days , I dont spend a lot of week days here so had a day off yesterday and went into bank. They said they will give my missus the tax certificates and I asked them to pay interest into current account. Got wrapped up in a 1.6% 10 month deposit , which is crap but I did not have time to shop around. How do I go about claiming my tax back ?

[Pib]

Come Jan-Mar 16 file for it at your local tax office.

[BobTH]

Not sure where you live but in Bangkok the area 3 office is at the intersection of Rama 1 Road and Bantadtong Road phone number 022145347-9 Extension 106,108. Perhaps the missus can call there to find out if it is the right office for you.

[Spleen]

Not sure where you live but in Bangkok the area 3 office is at the intersection of Rama 1 Road and Bantadtong Road phone number 022145347-9 Extension 106,108. Perhaps the missus can call there to find out if it is the right office for you.

Thanks gents I'll look up where the local office is. so early next year? its a not a massive amount but I'd rather have it than them. Also my missus has never claimed a rebate, she has had a restaurant for a few years and squirreled away a few bob in a time deposit. Think they may ask her where the Money came from, if she has not declared any of it previously

[BobTH]

You can also claim I believe it is up to 3 years back, you pay a small penalty of like 100 bath per year for the years other than the current one but if you had income then and didn't file for the refund keep that in mind. You will need the bank letter for each year. Also you can't have other income in Thailand if you are working, not sure of the exact process but they were determined to be sure that I had no other income before they would issue the refund.

[Pib]

Not sure where you live but in Bangkok the area 3 office is at the intersection of Rama 1 Road and Bantadtong Road phone number 022145347-9 Extension 106,108. Perhaps the missus can call there to find out if it is the right office for you.

Thanks gents I'll look up where the local office is. so early next year? its a not a massive amount but I'd rather have it than them. Also my missus has never claimed a rebate, she has had a restaurant for a few years and squirreled away a few bob in a time deposit. Think they may ask her where the Money came from, if she has not declared any of it previously

Well, depending the amount of interest refund you are filing for, your source of income (inside or outside Thailand), and the forms used they could ask the missus to identity her other other income or you income if earned within Thailand....that is taken into account in the process of determining how much of the withheld interest is refunded. Basically the first Bt150K of income per year is tax free....so if you gross income is below that you can get all the interest withheld refunded. The interest is not considered completely separate like refundable to anyone and everyone....like even if you were making millions of baht in income per year. I expect some folks don't file for the interest income refund because they don't want to declare their other income/lie on the tax form.

Like for me, I'm on a retirement extension of stay in Thailand...my living money comes from the home country pensions which is not taxable in Thailand, so my only "in-Thailand" income is the interest from my fixed income accounts during the year...I usually earn around Bt30K in gross interest each year---way short of the Bt150K tax free income point---with around Bt4.5K of that Bt30K being the amount withheld/what I'm filing a refund for.

Edited September 22, 2015 by Pib

[Spleen]

Not sure where you live but in Bangkok the area 3 office is at the intersection of Rama 1 Road and Bantadtong Road phone number 022145347-9 Extension 106,108. Perhaps the missus can call there to find out if it is the right office for you.

Thanks gents I'll look up where the local office is. so early next year? its a not a massive amount but I'd rather have it than them. Also my missus has never claimed a rebate, she has had a restaurant for a few years and squirreled away a few bob in a time deposit. Think they may ask her where the Money came from, if she has not declared any of it previously

Well, depending the amount of interest refund you are filing for, your source of income (inside or outside Thailand), and the forms used they could ask the missus to identity her other other income or you income if earned within Thailand....that is taken into account in the process of determining how much of the withheld interest is refunded. Basically the first Bt150K of income per year is tax free....so if you gross income is below that you can get all the interest withheld refunded. The interest is not considered completely separate like refundable to anyone and everyone....like even if you were making millions of baht in income per year. I expect some folks don't file for the interest income refund because they don't want to declare their other income/lie on the tax form.

Like for me, I'm on a retirement extension of stay in Thailand...my living money comes from the home country pensions which is not taxable in Thailand, so my only "in-Thailand" income is the interest from my fixed income accounts during the year...I usually earn around Bt30K in gross interest each year---way short of the Bt150K tax free income point---with around Bt4.5K of that Bt30K being the amount withheld/what I'm filing a refund for.

Thank you , my income is from outside Thailand, where I have lived for 10 years plus , Thailand at least once a month to see missus and kids in that time while working overseas

[SantiSuk]

You can also claim I believe it is up to 3 years back, you pay a small penalty of like 100 bath per year for the years other than the current one but if you had income then and didn't file for the refund keep that in mind. You will need the bank letter for each year. Also you can't have other income in Thailand if you are working, not sure of the exact process but they were determined to be sure that I had no other income before they would issue the refund.

They were determined to be sure I had no other income, or

They wanted to know the level of other income I had so that they could do a tax computation to see whether my interest income plus other income exceeded the available allowances and deductions?

The latter is not the same thing as 'you can have no other Thai income if you want to claim tax back on your Thai interest income' which is what I think you meant by the rather mangled (and meaningless, literally speaking) "you can't have other income in Thailand if you are working" [sorry bit of Yorkshireness crept in there]

You might have other Thai tax income which falls below the personal allowances and therefore leaves margin to get at least some of your tax back

IME the act of claiming a tax refund will stimulate questions being asked about your sources of income and may even extend to them asking about your wife, particularly if she is with you. The questions will be very superficial if the amount is small and still quite superficial if the amount is larger, but in that instance they may go so far as to knock up a tax return for your wife. If she is on modest income it is probably going to be insufficient to generate a tax liability*.

In my case I had a substantial reclaim - about 55,000 baht. My local office handled it and prepared the tax return in front of me. They enquired rather inexpertly about my other sources of income (inexpert since they were only interested in whether I had pension income in the UK, and working income in the UK or Thailand). They also asked about my wife's farming income and said it was irrelevant ("because it was cassava") which I found rather odd. It would have been within her personal allowances anyway (ie no tax due).

The papers then went up to the provincial office for approval, who first asked me to send copies of the bank certificates (I had given copies already at the local office) so I e-mailed scans of those. Then they asked me to come up to the provincial office with all my documents and Thai bank books and gave details of where to find them. Turned out it was the Regional investigation branch!

Due to the quantum of income and my oral disclosure of income and assets elsewhere they put me through the third degree (in good English and very politely) with heavy emphasis on the issue of whether any of my UK income (pensions and investment income) had been remitted to Thailand. They limited that to questioning but did not go so far as to seek documentary proof (I had such with me) and they did question how come I could make some significant transfers of cash to Thailand (which they saw in the bank accounts) if it was not out of current year income. They said I should not have claimed a tax deduction for my wife. I said it was the local tax office that did my tax return on the basis of my full disclosure. There were no accusations but they recomputed my tax later to disallow my deduction for having a wife.

For me as a retired chartered accountant I was unfazed by all this, had all the papers and more to back-up my tax position and surprise them with my knowledge of Thai tax (it's actualy only a basic knowledge). And I've always bee squeaky clean on tax anyway.

For the average falang here on a home country state pension with a bit of Thai interest income/might as well get the tax back - do not be frightened by this. They are just not interested in you and will process your claim quickly and do everything for you in your local office - take your Thai partner or friend unless you are a fluent (I'm passable but I'm not going to risk misunderstandings on taxation). They may or may not ask about your wife if applicable, so if she is a reasonable income earner who has not been paying tax but should, you'd better take appropriate action which may include both of you keeping your heads out of tax offices!

For someone with a sizeable interest claim like me - let's say more than 30k - who has stuff to hide - better stick you head back under the parapet mate and not claim. Better still, get advice and come clean you cheating barsteward

* It's too complicated to distill Thai taxation exemptions, deductions, personal allowances and tax rates here. Read my old firm's Thai taxation book attached if you are interested 2014 PwC Thai tax booklet.pdf

The key thing for many falang's wives is that there is no tax on the first 150k of income (=profit, not receipts) and that amount might effectively be boosted by as much as 100k from fairly normal allowances and as much again if yourself/wife are taking care of elderly/infirm relatives who have no income

[HampiK]

Thank you , my income is from outside Thailand, where I have lived for 10 years plus , Thailand at least once a month to see missus and kids in that time while working overseas

Hi,

One other question, where you pay your normal tax from income?

I myself claim the tax refund back at my home country, which has a double tax agreement with thailand. This works fine as well.

Only one thought which maybe count for you too

[Spleen]

I worked from 2002 to 2014 In Taiwan , China and Malaysia , The Expat contract was strictly Money paid into the bank each month, company paid our Tax, Not the same now in Singapore where as a Resident I will pay 7 to 10% in April get a 1 month bonus to compensate , which also pushes the Tax level up of course