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Posts posted by Dogmatix
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1 hour ago, JohnnyBD said:
I agree. It surpised me too. I know he used before 2024 income as just an example, (because RD has already said pre-2024 income doesn't count for anyone), but when he talked about income in 2024 being taxable if remitted in 2024, that really surpised me. What's the point in getting a LTR visa if that's the case. That doesn't give LTRs any special privileges over non-LTRs. It just confirms to me that everyone is not on the same page, not even some of the agencies. I wonder what some of the LTR visa holders will think of this. Maybe these questions have already been answered by BOI on their website. I hope so...
As you say 2024 was just used as an example because it is the current year but in 2025 LTR holders will have exemption on remitting the types of income specified in the Royal Decree that were generated in 2024, which will not be possible for those who are not LTR visa holders, including Thai citizens.
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2 hours ago, JohnnyBD said:I just received the following email regarding monies remitted to Thailand for LTR visa holders. It will definitely factor into my decision on whether to buy a LTR visa or just stay in my home country for 7 months next year when I need to remit big monies for a new condo and to replenish my THB accounts.Dear Sir,LTR Visa holders are tax exempt from income remitted into Thailand as long it wasn't earned in the same year. For example, any earnings before 2024 (savings) remitted into Thailand in 2024 will not be subjected to income tax.Pension and dividends earned in 2024 and remitted in the same year would be subjected to income tax. We advise our clients to wait until the following tax year (calendar year in Thailand) to remit this income. Most people who hold the LTR will not have to pay tax as their savings are much more significant than their annual earnings.You would meet all the requirements as a "Wealthy Pensioner" based on the information you provided. The success of your application will be dependent on the supporting evidence you are able to provide.
If you have any questions or would like to retain our services, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,Xxxx Xxxxx International * I blocked Company name to be politeThis company's advice is in line with Royal Decree 743 and spot on about foreign income being taxable, if remitted in the same year it arose. The only part I would question is whether dividends earned in the prior tax year would be exempt, the decree is specific about what type of income is exempt and it doesn't include dividend income or capital gains from equities. It specifies exemption only for income "...from an employment, or from business carried on abroad, or from a property situated abroad, and brought into Thailand." Interestingly pension income is not specifically exempted which may be a blow to LTR visa holders in the wealthy pension category, if interpreted literally by the RD. However, it could be argued that an occupational private pension is income from an employment but a private pension set up by the pensioner which is not directly paid by the former employer would be a stretch. This interpretation also cannot be applied to state pensions, although US SS is exempted in the US DTA. In addition there is no mention of interest income or any other investment income other than from property, e.g. gains from precious metals or crypto. They could have just said LTR visa holders were exempt from tax on any assessible income under Section 40 from the prior year but that is not what they said.
It is interesting that the tax exemption offered to LTR holders by the BOI was at the time of the Royal Decree the same tax exemption offered to everyone. Whether by luck or judgement the BOI managed to get it put into law, so that LTR holders could retain the privilege in spite of a flaky reinterpretation by the director general, who is now permanent secretary for finance.
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4 hours ago, stat said:
The only reason I can think if that they only issued 5500 LTR visa and were hoping for a lot more.
Right the guy that sold the Prayut cabinet on the LTR visa scheme projected a million LTR visas in a fairly short space of time. Now that he and the Prayut government are gone, this may well be an orphaned project. It was put under the BOI which is part of the PM's office to prevent Immigration interfering with it and they must have been furious. At the time the tax exemption wasn't thought a big deal because it was so easy to avoid tax on foreign source income by remitting in the following year. But now it is a big deal. Since LTR no longer has a champion in the cabinet and it has sold far, far less than billed, it would easy to see it scaled down with some privileges withdrawn, e.g. the tax exemption, in future. But since that came from a Royal Decree, it takes a bit of effort to cancel it but it might happen when there are other amendments to the RC to be made through a Royal Decree or an Act of Parliament.
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At least they didn't murder anyone like that gruesome school headmaster.
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36 minutes ago, UKresonant said:Headline;-
Can gift up to THB 20 million to spouse (option for 5% tax).
She can't use it for property purchase (most likely), and it must be a true gift. Interest on the gift will be taxable.
A 5% tax rate on gifts to spouses or ascendant or descendant next of kin is applied, only if the gifting exceeds 20 million in a tax year.
What makes you think a spouse cannot use a gift to buy property? And what do you think are the criteria the RD uses to determine hat a spousal gift is a true gift or otherwise, particularly given that all assets acquired by either spouse after marriage are immediately deemed common conjugal property under the Civil & Commercial Code. The law has been on the books for 9 years now. So you should be able to find ample evidence to support your interpretations.
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33 minutes ago, proton said:How does this million baht a year un taxed gift to the Mrs work? and how can you prove its a gift rather than expenses for the family for a year.
It is 20 million baht a year, not 1 million. The gift tax law was introduced in 2015 in tandem with the revived inheritance tax. The law appears very broad and doesn't place any particular restrictions on gifts to spouses or what they may do with them. There is only one known case where the RD has challenged gifts remitted from overseas and that was on the basis that the couple were not officially married. So the gifts were deemed not to qualify as exempt gifts on that basis. I attach the law and the case. In lieu of more detailed information or regulations on this from the RD, you need to use your own imagination to interpret this regulation, as many posters have already done copiously here.
Gift Tax 2015 EN.docx Gift Tax Case RD KK0702-530 11 Feb 2023.docx
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19 hours ago, rainwater said:
Do I have to pay taxes on cryptocurrency I buy with Thai baht then transfer to another wallet and lending platform to earn interest and then bring it back in through coins.th.com? How is the government going to know I even have an account with this company? I don't have a tax ID number like in America we have a social security numbers where all of our taxes are tracked, what's the deal how is this going to work is it going to affect our retirement visas somehow are we going to have to start showing more paperwork to immigration what a nightmare?
If you have earned interest overseas on the crypto that you transferred overseas and then remit that interest back to Thailand, the RD will consider it assessable income. Capital gains on the crypto would also be taxable, if they arise in Thailand, or if they arise overseas and are remitted to Thailand. Whether you have to pay Thai tax on this assessable income depends on whether you are Thai tax resident and have overall assessable income in excess of the threshold and personal deductions.
How the RD will track this sort of income is another matter. They say they are using AI to detect tax avoidance but so far this seems directed at the vast number of Thais who doing personal business online and offline without filing tax returns. They are analysing bank account data and sifting through Facebook accounts that Thais use to sell stuff online. Bitkub states on its website that the RD has so far not requested account data, nor has it come up with a means of implementing the 15% withholding tax on crypto capital gains that is already on the books but not yet enforced. Most likely in the fullness of time, the RD will come up with ways of tracking crypto income. .
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I see some posters allude to the UK's regulations for remittance based taxation of non-doms who are wealthy foreigners living in the UK and taking advantage of the dregs of the UK's long standing, controversial scheme to attract them to take up residence in the UK and feel that the RD might draw some inspiration from the copious HMRC regulations relating to taxation of foreign source remittances for non-doms. Originally the scheme allowed foreigners to take up residence in the UK and avoid paying tax on global income and gains like common or garden UK tax residents and pay tax only UK source income and remitted foreign source income indefinitely. Now non-dom status has to be purchased by paying a standing tax charge on foreign source income which makes it only worthwhile to those would otherwise pay more than the standing charge and the status is no longer indefinite. The government has always claimed it attracted a lot of rich foreigners to come and spend oodles of cash and invest in the UK but it has always been wildly unpopular with Brits who have to pay their taxes on global income and gains in full whether remitted or not. Rishi Sunak's wealthy Indian wife, who has a vast private income from dividends in India, took advantage of the scheme and was effectively a poster girl for those who wish to abolish the scheme.
In the latest budget the Conservative government announced further restrictions to the non-dom scheme which was already on its last legs. Since the new regulations will apply in April 2025 and the Conservative government will almost certainly have been ousted by Labour in an election before then, it is unlikely that these new restrictions will ever be applied. Instead, it is more likely that a Labour government will announce the complete abolition of the non-dom privileged system of taxation and all UK tax residents will have to pay tax on their global income and gains, regardless or whether remitted to the UK or not. Whether or not the RD will seek inspiration from the non-dom scheme, once it has been abolished remains to be seen. Anyway, it is certainly highly unlikely that Thailand would ever adopt a non-dom scheme, other than the tax privilege for LTR visa holders which probably would never have seen the light of day post P. 161/2566, and may eventually be scrapped, if there is a proper reform to the tax of foreign source income via an act of parliament. If they study the history of the UK's non-dom system, the RD will understand that it has been deeply unpopular with locals and would certainly cause a backlash from Thais investing overseas. The RD claimed (somewhat disingenuously) that the purpose of P. 161/2566 was to promote fairness and ensure that all Thai tax residents would be treated fairly.
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13 hours ago, TonyFromItaly said:
The question is: what will happen to all the assets owned by the foreigner who will be expelled?
Because he won't have time to sell everything if he is expelled.
Will the Thai government take them? If something like this happens, foreigners will have to be very careful in the future, all it takes is that there are false accusations or a case invented with someone's complicity and they will expel us and the assets remain in Thailand at their disposal.
Think about it, it's a dangerous precedent.
TonyHis wife is Thai and probably a lot of the assets are in her name already.
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On 4/12/2024 at 9:41 PM, ukrules said:
That page is full of nonsense and years out of date information.
It begins with this
That's wrong as it's been discontinued as has the VAT exemption between certain dates, it was cancelled completely.
It's hard to find any sources on this because people aren't talking about it much but the occasional announcement comes out that some government ministry has scrapped the VAT completely and the withholding tax.
It's probably more widely reported in the Thai language media than English language which is why it's hard to find this information.
There was also some talk of a 15% capital gain tax on crypto earnings, supposedly instead of income tax on the gains but that's also complete nonsense (not mentioned on that page), it's normal PIT rates all the way which can go to 35%.
There is a 15% withholding tax on crypto capital gains but it is not applied because it is impractical to make crypto exchanges deduct withholding tax on gains which they cannot automatically compute. According to the amendment the taxpayer should use the 15% withheld as a tax credit and pay the difference or get a refund, if their tax rate is more or less than 15%. It is not clear when or if the withholding tax will be implemented.
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You could say that Mr Fehr deserves it but the personal interference in his case by the xenophobe interior minister and lack of due process are shocking. One can't help feeling that, if it had been a rich Thai Chinese who had kicked the lady doctor, the case wouldn't even have hit the news because she would have been successfully threatened and intimidated.
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1 hour ago, BritManToo said:
But where is the crime?
Cannabis is legal in Thailand, I get it posted to my home address all the time. Post office, Flash, Kerry all handle it.
Overstay is a crime, posting cannabis isn't.
Cannabis needs an import license and presumably an export license but it sounds like they might just go with fining and deportations for overstaying and let the Filipino justice system deal with them which is by no means certain. A friend who was managing ships with Filipino crews sent home a ship’s cook who had murdered the Filipino first officer with a kitchen knife for complaining his pans were not clean enough. The murder happened in international waters off Curaçao where the Dutch authorities declined to arrest him. So my friend sent him back to the Philippines, giving the Filipino FBI details of the case and the cook’s flight details. The FBI claimed jurisdiction and said they would arrest him at the airport but went to meet the wrong flight Then they lost interest and the cook got a job with another Manila based ship management company. -
6 minutes ago, smew said:
It is ridiculous to call police every-time you hear screams.
One of the reports said just one neighbour heard the screams. She was said to have lived there for 50 years, so must be fairly elderly. She reportedly said she heard two screams and would have poked her head out the window, if she had heard a third. But presumably she left it at that when there were no more screams. It seems the scream count was well short of her criterion for calling the unresponsive plod. After poking her head out the window, she might have needed to see a body fall from an upstairs window before making the call.- 5
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24 minutes ago, BritManToo said:
Hooker killed by Ambassador on diplomatic passport.
So far only one photo of her which looks very posed with her holding a probably fake antiquarian book as a prop. She was young and appeared pretty in the photo but didn’t look overtly like a bar girl or hooker. It’s a rather romantic type shot.
The plod have been slow off the mark but lots of material for them to investigate. Friends who reported her unresponsive need will provide details of her life in London. There is CCTV, her visa status in UK - if she really had a HK passport, she could travel on that to the UK without visa. Who rented the very expensive 5 bedroom house in prime London area. Was she staying there alone? Are the reports about a British husband true?
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Not a lot of information on this case or the unfortunate victim. Thai language reports are translations of what was in the British press. She was said to have a Hong Kong passport as well as a Thai one and went to the UK in September to join a British husband who is not named in any of the reports and no mention of them living together. Since she had a HK passport and there is nothing so far about her life or family in Thai media, it is possible she wasn’t brought up in Thailand and has no close family here, although more may emerge in Thai language media later.
The place she was murdered was a 5 bedroom terrace house in Marble Arch 200 yards from Hyde Park that served as the Ethiopian embassy until 4 years ago. Now thought to be an AirBNB. She can’t have been there more than a few days, as neighbours said a Swedish family was renting over Easter. In that area there are AirBNB 2 bed flats offered at 400 pounds plus a night and a 6 bed house at 1,840 a night. So the house in Stanhope Place must have been renting at north of 1,000 pounds a night. Not your average young Thai lady joining a British hubby in the UK and no suggestion she is from an ultra wealthy Thai or HK family.
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12 hours ago, Moonlover said:I have never had to have anyone to sign to say they have known me for several years and I've lost count of how many passports that is.
A passport that has been reported stolen would immediately be cancelled so you're right, it does seem somewhat incredulous. But there is one possible explanation, that the real 'Peter Smith' never reported it missing in the first place. If he wasn't much of a travelling man he may never have noticed.
used to need someone to vouch your photo was a true likeness at the embassy and consular staff were willing to do that. Since the embassy stopped issuing passports this requirement is only for first time adult passports, as far as I am aware.- 1
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8 minutes ago, UKresonant said:The out of sync tax year is potentially a problem for UK Tax docs.
Knowing what documents will be asked for consistantly would be more than useful. Don't want the 'need stamped by your Embassy' when that is just not a possibility, as that service is not offered and such like.
Perhaps the only segment of income, that may not be an issue is the 'taxed only in UK' .Gov pension. I'm thinking the net value could be remitted as soon as the P60 end of year Tax Cert is issued (April/May) Only legitimate source, (and tax paid maybe) needs demonstrated hopefully. May have to be declared somehow, but not as part of the tax calculation. Therefore only declared as explanation, and does not logically need to align to Thai tax year. Pretty small component of my income though.
I think it will be a problem for guys who get their state pensions remitted direct to Thailand monthly or quarterly. If you get it paid to a UK bank account and remit once a year or so, you can argue it was the pension amount reflected in your P60 for the previous tax year. That is assuming they accept an uncertified P60 of course. I think that having private pensions remitted direct to Thailand will also be problematic. It would be better not to have any regular income remitted direct but I know that some people have had their UK bank accounts closed down, eg Barclays, which leaves them little flexibility to time remittances.
Pensions from UK government jobs are of course exempt from Thai tax under the DTA. The British government didn't bother to make state pensions exempt like the US did. The exemption was probably to be had for the asking at the time but no one asked.
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10 minutes ago, Mike Lister said:
Just checking that you understand the tax tax tables are stepped, only the mount of income that falls within that step is taxed at that level of the step.
There is an open issue about the tax on funds remitted when not tax resident and whether they could be taxed later, despite not being tax resident at the time of remittance. That issue is logged at the end of the Simple Tax Guide and is awaiting clarification.
My personal opinion is that the government will not want to allow this tax rule change to impact the Thai property market, hence the idea that imported funds used to buy real estate here, will be taxed, seems improbable. How this will be operationalised or what measures put in place to prevent a negative impact on the property market, is very unclear.
It is very clear from the RD's Q&A (Q9 attached) that income remitted while not yet tax resident doesn't retroactively become taxable when the remitter becomes tax resident. They give an example of a Thai person living in Taiwan and planning to remit money saved in China and return home. They say clearly that they remit the money before coming tax resident again, it is not taxable and they don't say that it becomes taxable retroactively after the person moves back. It would be rather impracticable to try to tax it retroactively anyway without any regulations to specify how far back they could go. If you remitted money to Thailand 20 years ago and then became tax resident, would that be taxable? Obviously not. So why would it taxable, if remitted the year before you become tax resident?
I was expecting an outcry from resort condo developers and some sort of exemptions to be made for purchase of property but we are now well into the tax year and there has been no outcry from developers and nothing has happened. It would make sense to give an exemption on income remitted to buy a condo, as long as it was owned for about 5 years, but it doesn't look like this is going to happen. Apart from the fact no one has publicly asked for this, I would see some difficulties from the RD's perspective. Tax in Thailand is nationality neutral. I can think of no part of the Revenue Code that taxes Thais and foreigners differently and promotion of tourism is not the RD's job. Any exemption would have to be applied equally to Thais and foreigners and and the RD would view allowing people exemption on income remitted to buy land and other property as an undesirable loophole. Many Thais would rather buy a piece of land with their investment profits and hold it for 5 years than pay 35% tax on it. They will most likely get another round of profit from the land. Another issue is that an exemption would require an amendment to the Revenue Code. The government would probably just say they have already amended the Revenue Code with the Royal Decree to give complete exemption on remittances to LTR visa holders and these are the only foreigners they want to attract to stay long term. If the others don't buy condos or leave, they don't care because they believe there are plenty more rich foreigners queuing for LTRs and this will be consistent with their long term stay policy of rich guys in, poor guys out.
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3 hours ago, Mike Lister said:
Please bear in mind that not all readers of this thread have the same academic stamina and qualifications that you do and the average members ability to understand the Revenue Code or a DTA is not what yours might be. My biggest criticism of the thread previously is that the conversations were too complex and hi brow for many to understand, which is why a more simpler dialogue became so popular. Expat blogs and any other reasonable form of narrative that puts things simply and provides anecdotal evidence, is usefully deployed here for many, this is not a court of law or a debate in the Supreme Court!
I also think we can get a good indication from looking at what other countries Revenue departments do, if we want to understand how the TRD might behave in the future. Looking at gold standards or best practise or even most common practise, in the absence of first hand confirmation of local practise, is extremely helpful.
I think members should be allowed to choose their own level of discourse without requiring them to dumb down discussions to only address the lowest common denominator. If that is the case, it is hardly likely that any gold nuggets of information will ever be found in any of the threads. As for whether RD policy makers look at gold standards from other jurisdictions as best practice they should emulate, we can only speculate on that. Probably some do and others never even look at what happens outside the four walls of their own room.
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6 hours ago, Mike Lister said:
I may need to change my opinion on Gift Tax, I've been reading how other countries such as the UK treat Gifts and it's much more liberal than I had previously understood.
Gifts from overseas, to UK residents are free of tax, that being the case, overseas gifts to Thai tax residents might also be free of tax (subject to limits). One question is whether the Thai RD would look at those funds first as a Gift, or as Imported Funds that need assessment, in other words, does the Gift aspect negate the need to assess them?
The US also has liberal terms on Gifts, they impose a lifetime limit of Gifts which is in the millions of Dollars.
On the Thai side: there appears to be a means by which previously given Gifts can be clawed back and reclaimed, under odd circumstances. The giftor can reclaim the gift from the giftee, if the giftee defames the giftor or refuses to provide funding for medical care in critical situations, when they are able to do so.
"You can reclaim a gift if the recipient commits a serious crime against the donor, if the recipient seriously insults the donor or seriously undermined his reputation (defamation), and if the recipient refuses to provide the donor with the necessary assistance in the event of danger to his life .
You must submit a claim in this regard within six months of becoming aware of the incident. There is also a statute of limitations.
Theft, fraud and an attack on the donor himself can be a reason to revoke a donation. If it concerns defamation and insult, it must be serious matters. A wrong word in the family atmosphere can be too little; you have to think of public statements that seriously discredit the donor".https://www.thailandblog.nl/en/expats-en-pensionado/over-schenken-en-schenkbelasting-in-thailand/
Another aspect is that the Gift must be intended for the Giftee and used by them.
My confidence level that we understand Gift Tax here is low.
It's all a matter of opinion but I personally have more confidence in my understanding of gift tax because it is set out in black and white in the Revenue Code and there has not any controversy over the RD's application of the gift tax exemption or any cases that suggest that since it was introduced in 2016.
Where I have really low confidence is in the application of the RD of DTAs which are not even mentioned in the Revenue Code as being applicable to PIT. That is odd as Thai statutory law would normally be amended to reflect the existence of international treaties and specify how they should be applied, as you can see in the Land Code. The RD has had decades to amend the Revenue Code in this way but has failed to do so. There is a ruling from a few decades ago on one case that said tax credits were applicable to salary tax withheld in the Philippines under the DTA but there are few details in that ruling to say how tax credits should be applied and nothing whatsoever vis a vis investment income which we are told is the RD's main target. That means there is no statutory low, ministerial regulations or Revenue Department regulations on how DTAs should be applied. That leaves room for a great deal of inconsistent discretion by individual RD officers and the possibility that many applications for tax credits will be rejected due to lack of acceptable documentation or due to out of synch tax years, leaving tax payers to pay the total Thai tax due and try to get a refund of the total tax paid overseas on foreign source income.
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2 hours ago, Mike Lister said:
The web site belongs to Dezan Shera and Associates, a very large global firm with a substantial presence in Asia.
https://www.dezshira.com/about-us/our-firm.html#
The usefulness of the article is to describe to foreign residents in Thailand, in simple terms, the circumstances under which their funds transfers might be assessable, under which parts of the Revenue Code, AS SHOWN IN BOLD IN THE TAX GUIUDE.
Individuals, who are categorized as:
a) Thai citizens;
b) A Thai resident who filed taxes in the previous tax year;
c) Foreigners who reside in Thailand for one or more periods with at least 180 days in one tax calendar year.
And who receive income from inside or outside Thailand via:
a) Income from employment (wages, salaries, remuneration, etc.) assessable under Section 40 of the Revenue Code;
b) Income from business operations is assessable under Section 40.
c) Passive or property income (interest, dividends, rental income, goodwill, etc.) based on Article 41 paragraph 2 of the Revenue Code.
I have never heard of Dezan, Shira & Associates but it doesn't matter much what their reputation is or what resources they have in Asia because because 2 out of 7 points are nonsense:
a) Thai citizens;
b) A Thai resident who filed taxes in the previous tax year;
And the connecting phrase is misleading because it fails to draw a distinction between income received from outside Thailand that is remitted to Thailand and that which is not.
And who receive income from inside or outside Thailand via:
I don't know you would want to draw stuff from other peoples' unverified ebsites which are probably plagiarised from somewhere else, in the trust that they have read the Revenue Code in detail and thoroughly understand it, rather than based on direct reading of the Revenue Code yourself. Anyway, if you want to put that in the tax guide, I don't care because I have no interest in the guide. I also think it would be better to keep this thread for discussion of the tax change at hand and not to clutter this thread with discussion of the phraseology of the tax guide, as I am sure many others are not interested in discussing the guide That should be done in the tax guide thread itself, or if you don't want any discussion in that for some reason, open a dedicated thread for comments on the tax guide.
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16 hours ago, Mike Lister said:
That section is a direct quote from a law firm of some repute, nevertheless, I agree it is still somewhat ambiguous. I think I'd prefer to go with a single "from", as follows.
OVERVIEW OF THE TAX LAW
1) Thai tax laws require a person to pay income tax to the Thai Revenue Department under the following conditions:
Individuals, who are categorized as:
a) Thai citizens;
b) A Thai resident who filed taxes in the previous tax year;
c) Foreigners who reside in Thailand for one or more periods with at least 180 days in one tax calendar year.
And who receive income from inside or outside Thailand via:
a) Income from employment (wages, salaries, remuneration, etc.) assessable under Section 40 of the Revenue Code;
b) Income from business operations is assessable under Section 40.
c) Passive or property income (interest, dividends, rental income, goodwill, etc.) based on Article 41 paragraph 2 of the Revenue Code.
I don't know whose website this is from but it is pretty hopeless.
Thai citizens are not liable to pay tax unless they are tax residents or have Thai source income.
It makes no difference whether you filed taxes the previous year or not. If you stop having assessable income, no need to keep on filing PND90/91s.
The second part creates confusion about assessability of offshore income. The actual situation is that income paid offshore but arising from Thailand is taxable regardless of whether the recipient is tax resident in Thailand because it is Thai source income. Foreign source income is only taxable on remittance to Thailand.
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2 hours ago, Mike Lister said:
I may need to change my opinion on Gift Tax, I've been reading how other countries such as the UK treat Gifts and it's much more liberal than I had previously understood.
Gifts from overseas, to UK residents are free of tax, that being the case, overseas gifts to Thai tax residents might also be free of tax (subject to limits). One question is whether the Thai RD would look at those funds first as a Gift, or as Imported Funds that need assessment, in other words, does the Gift aspect negate the need to assess them?
The US also has liberal terms on Gifts, they impose a lifetime limit of Gifts which is in the millions of Dollars.
On the Thai side: there appears to be a means by which previously given Gifts can be clawed back and reclaimed, under odd circumstances. The giftor can reclaim the gift from the giftee, if the giftee defames the giftor or refuses to provide funding for medical care in critical situations, when they are able to do so.
"You can reclaim a gift if the recipient commits a serious crime against the donor, if the recipient seriously insults the donor or seriously undermined his reputation (defamation), and if the recipient refuses to provide the donor with the necessary assistance in the event of danger to his life .
You must submit a claim in this regard within six months of becoming aware of the incident. There is also a statute of limitations.
Theft, fraud and an attack on the donor himself can be a reason to revoke a donation. If it concerns defamation and insult, it must be serious matters. A wrong word in the family atmosphere can be too little; you have to think of public statements that seriously discredit the donor".https://www.thailandblog.nl/en/expats-en-pensionado/over-schenken-en-schenkbelasting-in-thailand/
Another aspect is that the Gift must be intended for the Giftee and used by them.
My confidence level that we understand Gift Tax here is low.
Indeed the Civil & Commercial Code definition of a gift contradicts itself. In the first part it says that a gift is irrevocable. In the second part it outlines conditions for a gift to be revoked. Furthermore the CC&C definition of common conjugal property means that spousal gifts immediately become common conjugal property.
I don't think we can get much help from unattributed views in expat blogs and the RD probably doesn't pay much attention to taxability of gifts in other countries. The Revenue Code is very open in exempting gifts up to 20 mil between married couples. It doesn't define gifts or make any limitations. It doesn't even say that a spouse, who has received a gift may never make a gift back their spouse. If there are other cash flows into the receiving spouse's bank account, the RD is not in a position to argue that the re-gifted amount came from the initial gift or other funds. Plus the fact that all funds received after marriage are conjugal property anyway.
The only way to get greater clarity is to find individual cases of gifts. I found one and posted it. Then there is the case of a Potjaman's gift to her brother-in-law that was initially ruled taxable on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence that this was a gift made on a special occasion because it occurred 2 years after his marriage. Then the appeal court ruled it was in fact a wedding gift. The fact that there may not be any others since the gift tax amendment may suggest it is not a controversial subject for the RD. Both of these cases relied solely on what was in the statutory law and didn't bring in any other regulations or reinterpretations of the law.
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7 minutes ago, Mike Lister said:
That also has to be assumption and opinion. I personally think that if somebody was gifted 20 mill, the RD would look at both the giver and the receiver.
They might but in that case would they worry, if the giftor claimed a 60k spouse allowance or a refund of 3k in withholding tax? In the only case study we have so far the only things that the RD investigated was that the gift was not over 20 mil and that the couple was lawfully married. Of course more cases may follow but anything more to do with irrecoverability and separation of assets is going to hard for them to argue, given that the CC&C makes impossible to keep ownership of conjugal assets separate. More likely they would push the finance ministry for a Royal Decree to reduce the exempt amount which is on the cards anyway along with a reduction in the 100 mil exemption on IHT. I believe gift tax will continue to be looked in tandem with the IHT, rather than in tandem with this remittance reinterpretation.
Govt Urged To Reveal Details Of BAAC Borrowing For Digital Wallet Scheme
in Thailand News
Posted
This is insane. The government is taking a third from this year's budget, a third from next year's budget and borrowing a third from BAAC with no plan on how it will repay the loan. The loan for Yingluck's corrupt rice pledging scheme 10 years ago has still not be fully repaid, as far as I know.
The economy not in crisis as PM Srettha-Thaksin claims. It just suffers from chronic structural problems due to long term mismanagement and failure to make it competitive by reforming education, investing in R&D and a lack of investment in worthwhile infrastructure (not land bridges).
So after resorting to such ruinous means to fund the thing, what recourse will there be, if the economy enters another real crisis - another crippling loan from BAAC, allocations from future budgets after 2026?