Tax Identification Numbers

[MrMuddle]

Our bank in the UK has written to my wife, asking her what her Tax Identification Number is here in Thailand. How does she find this out ? We'd never heard of this before.

This is so she can "gain a tax declaration and meet legal and statutory requirements", whatever that means. They ask she send them "certified copies" of her passport or ID card, or a certificate of residence. How does one get a certified copy ? I've tried phoning the Bank and no one seems to know, which is a great help!
She last worked here in 2000, and last worked in the UK in 2005. We live between here and the UK, but have spent more time here of late, because her Mother is seriously ill and not expected to get better. Have these people nothing better to do ? Any help / advice appreciated.

[jonw8uk]

is the request in relation to "common reporting standard (CRS)"??

 

I had this from HSBC recently after I changed address.  The form asked for my tax number here, which i dont have.

 

Regardless, I looked into the CRS scheme and Thailand haven't signed up, so I replied as such, and HSBC accepted that.

 

Although with you saying you still live in the UK sometimes, you will still be classed as resident for tax, so may have to take action on anything they request based on UK tax.

 

For some other banking documents I had to send, I had a chartered accountant sign them to certify them, I think some embassies will do this also.  They normally specify in the letter/website as to exactly what they accept as a certified copy

[MrMuddle]

Thanks for your reply. I hope we don't have to go to Bangkok to get the Embassy to certify any copies, we live a long way from there !

[allane]

If she has ever worked at a job where she had income tax deducted, she should have a tax number already. If she had one, but has lost the card, she should contact the Revenue Dept.

If she has never had one, she can get one at her Ampheur/District Office.

[MrMuddle]

Thank you, allane. She worked in several Hotels in Pattaya, but I'm not sure if she ever paid tax (she's out at the moment). We'll call at the District Office on Monday.

[meatboy]

4 minutes ago, MrMuddle said:

Thank you, allane. She worked in several Hotels in Pattaya, but I'm not sure if she ever paid tax (she's out at the moment). We'll call at the District Office on Monday.

my wife last worked in thailand 28yrs.ago,when she claimed a tax refund of tax witheld here [2010] as soon as they entered her id.it came up straight away.

she also worked in the uk.for 20yrs.and recently the bank in the uk. asked her about her residence status,as she gets a pension paid into a bank in the uk.

she has a tax referance no.in the uk.that is all they wanted to know

 

[OJAS]

On 11/19/2016 at 3:31 AM, MrMuddle said:

Thanks for your reply. I hope we don't have to go to Bangkok to get the Embassy to certify any copies, we live a long way from there !

 

Legalisation of official UK documents entails rather more than a trip to Bangkok these days, in any event: 

 

https://www.gov.uk/get-document-legalised

 

[MrMuddle]

Thankfully it is Thai documents they have asked for.
Passport or
ID card or
Armed Forces ID card or
A Certificate of Residence (no idea what that is),  or
a financial statement (no other specification for that one), or
a driving licence.
Hopefully we can get one of them certified at our local City Hall.
All of this seems a lot of fuss over nothing to me !  :)

Edited November 20, 2016 by MrMuddle
Pressed post by mistake - I blame the new operating system on my laptop it's a pain !

[MrMuddle]

From the UK government website that OJAS was kind enough to provide a link to :

"You can’t get documents issued outside the UK legalised using this service - get them legalised in the country they were issued."
I'm hopeful our City Hall can do this.

[KittenKong]

One of my UK banks wanted a certified copy of my passport recently. I just them a photocopy with the comment "If you want to certify it I will be in the UK next year at which time I will happily take it into one of your branches for them to do so. Otherwise you can pay for the cost of certifying it here, which I expect to be between GBP10 and GBP50 depending on who does it."

[fletchsmile]

If it's your wife's tax ID as an individual you are looking for and your wife is Thai, she will use her usual Thai ID card number (bart prachachon) for tax purposes.

 

Foreigners working here will have a separate Thai tax ID number as they don't have a Thai ID card

 

As for "certified copies" they need to define who they need to be certified by. e.g will her simply signing the said documents herself be OK? just a witness? - basically who is authorised to do so?

 

In the absence of any clarification, why not just simply send a copy of her Thai ID card, and write and sign "I certify this is a true copy of the ID card and tax number 1234 for Mrs XYZ etc then sign her name and send it in. If they want something else they can then ask to clarify. Easy and demonstrates you've done your best to comply on the info given.

 

Cheers

Fletch :)

[MrMuddle]

Thanks for the replies KittenKong & flecthsmile.

KittenKong - I'm soooooo tempted to give them what for, but I suspect I'll only be creating problems for myself in future !
Plus I'm too ill to travel to the UK at the moment, and for the forseeable future, so I can't make that "offer" !  

fletchsmile, I think you're probably right, but my wife hasn't worked  in Thailand since we married and she changed her surname, not sure if that will make a difference, to her tax id number. We're going to the local tax office to see what we can find out. The UK Bank has conveniently given us a form for her to certify her own tax number, it's the accompanying documents, (which I detailed in post  8), which they "need" to be certified. I suspect  that this is just another moneymaker, for someone in the UK government, or one of their cronies. A lot of fuss about nothing, as usual, with the UK government. 

Edited November 22, 2016 by MrMuddle
My pedantic compulsion to correct my own spellng and grammatical mistakes !

[meatboy]

On 19/11/2559 at 2:47 PM, meatboy said:

my wife last worked in thailand 28yrs.ago,when she claimed a tax refund of tax witheld here [2010] as soon as they entered her id.it came up straight away.

she also worked in the uk.for 20yrs.and recently the bank in the uk. asked her about her residence status,as she gets a pension paid into a bank in the uk.

she has a tax referance no.in the uk.that is all they wanted to know

 

this is exactly the same form the wife got. got it signed by our lawyer.very easy,so i dont know why your getting yourself in such a MUDDLE.

[fletchsmile]

3 hours ago, MrMuddle said:

Thanks for the replies KittenKong & flecthsmile.

....
fletchsmile, I think you're probably right, but my wife hasn't worked  in Thailand since we married and she changed her surname, not sure if that will make a difference, to her tax id number. We're going to the local tax office to see what we can find out. The UK Bank has conveniently given us a form for her to certify her own tax number, it's the accompanying documents, (which I detailed in post  8), which they "need" to be certified. I suspect  that this is just another moneymaker, for someone in the UK government, or one of their cronies. A lot of fuss about nothing, as usual, with the UK government. 

 

Getting married and changing her name won't change your wife's Thai ID number / tax number. If she hasn't done already she should probably get her Thai ID card updated though to reflect the name change. :)

[regedit]

5 hours ago, fletchsmile said:

 

If she hasn't done already she should probably get her Thai ID card updated though to reflect the name change. :)

 

Is there any reason they need to do this ? Probably most Thai women would rather keep their farang relationship discrete when dealing with Thai officialdom...

[regedit]

On 20/11/2016 at 8:12 PM, MrMuddle said:

Thankfully it is Thai documents they have asked for.
Passport or
ID card or
Armed Forces ID card or
A Certificate of Residence (no idea what that is),  or
a financial statement (no other specification for that one), or
a driving licence.
Hopefully we can get one of them certified at our local City Hall.
All of this seems a lot of fuss over nothing to me !  :)

 

Some of this is normal proof of identity stuff. If you informed them that your wife was Tax resident in Thailand that may have triggered their request for a tax id number (whether they really need it or not). Probably best to keep the Tax Residency boxes set to UK only when dealing with a UK bank.

[MrMuddle]

10 hours ago, meatboy said:

this is exactly the same form the wife got. got it signed by our lawyer.very easy,so i dont know why your getting yourself in such a MUDDLE.

Sorry I completely missed your original post. I'm having some major surgery done next week, so I'm trying to sort everything out for my wife, just in case. I need this problem like a hole in the head, at the moment.
it doesn't say on the form exactly who can sign it, just that it should be certified.

[MrMuddle]

7 hours ago, fletchsmile said:

 

Getting married and changing her name won't change your wife's Thai ID number / tax number. If she hasn't done already she should probably get her Thai ID card updated though to reflect the name change. :)

You're right, it didn't. We called them this morning. Thanks for your help.

[MrMuddle]

2 hours ago, regedit said:

 

Some of this is normal proof of identity stuff. If you informed them that your wife was Tax resident in Thailand that may have triggered their request for a tax id number (whether they really need it or not). Probably best to keep the Tax Residency boxes set to UK only when dealing with a UK bank.

Sadly it seems one can't do that anymore, thanks to the introduction of the "International Tax Compliance Regulations". We Bank both in the UK, and here, but it seems, reading between the lines, that our UK Bank is trying to get rid of customers who no longer spend much time in the UK.
I didn't inform them directly. We use two addresses for our Banking business with them, depending on where we are. They have obviously dug this out of their files.

[meatboy]

14 hours ago, MrMuddle said:

Sorry I completely missed your original post. I'm having some major surgery done next week, so I'm trying to sort everything out for my wife, just in case. I need this problem like a hole in the head, at the moment.
it doesn't say on the form exactly who can sign it, just that it should be certified.

yes i know what your going through,i had to do the same when i had heart surgery,where 10% dont make it. 

i forgot to say,when we got married 27yrs.ago she changed her surname there and then,but when she went to the tax office for a T.I.N.they entered her maiden name and up it came.

why the uk.banks are asking for this info.is because they have a double taxation agreement with thailand,so they are checking that if she is fiddleing the system they will want to know.

good luck with the surgery. 

meatboy

[regedit]

Re Certification of copies of documents that UK banks require they usually give a list of who they will accept as a certifying it. Self-certification or certification by a relative is usually not accepted. What has worked for me is getting a Thai lawyer who is a Notary Public just stick their rubber stamp on the copy, have them sign it with a declaration that it's a true copy etc.

So long as their stamp shows the person is a Notary Public and a member of the Lawyers Council of Thailand the docs should be accepted as certified copies.

[MrMuddle]

It doesn't say who can certify the documents. I can ask a lawyer. Thank you.  

[fletchsmile]

On 11/22/2016 at 4:20 PM, regedit said:

 

Is there any reason they need to do this ? Probably most Thai women would rather keep their farang relationship discrete when dealing with Thai officialdom...

If she has legally changed her name on marriage then it makes sense to have the ID documents reflect this.

 

Otherwise she'll run into difficulties when various things don't match. eg in OPs case his wife has a UK bank account in her new name. Thai ID card with maiden name doesn't match so won't be accepted as proof of ID without further documents. What happens when she wants a new passport etc

 

Not sure why someone would want to keep it discrete with Thai officials? These days there are no legal disadvantages of being married to a foreigner. Some like to change their name to their husband, some don't. Some like to get rid of the Thai name, some don't etc. Some aren't bothered.

 

Basically if they don't want the husband's name on their ID then best not to change their name to their husband's on marriage

Edited November 24, 2016 by fletchsmile