No sign of a common Thai policy to tax expats

[reader]

From Pattaya Mail

By Barry Kenyon

With a couple of weeks left to sign up with the Thai Revenue Department (TRD) for cash transmitted from abroad in the calendar year 2024, questions still abound. It all depends whom you ask. Some Thai tax lawyers, for instance, say the tax net includes use of overseas credit cards and transfers via Wise, others argue it’s more complicated than that. Some claim that everyone who was present in Thailand for 180 days plus last year needs to file, an observation hotly disputed by others who stress no need if you didn’t transfer “assessable” income.

Benjamin Hart, a naturalized Thai citizen and managing director of Integrity Legal, in his videos has argued forcefully that typical pensioners living here on pre-taxed income in their home country should not be fooled by foreign “tax-pimps” who have no authority anyway under Thai law. He does caution that those in doubt should consult a native Thai tax consultant, emphasizing that there has been no change in Thai law, merely a revised interpretation by TRD. Other commentators last year went further and predicted that the matter might well be contested in the Thai courts with a likely win for the tax residents under financial threat. However, no such legal challenges have apparently been initiated.

Pinsai Suraswadi, newly appointed director general of TRD, has stated that expats, Thai or foreign, who are tax residents should file paperwork by March 31 with a further week’s leeway for online submissions. He was very candid that the specific amount payable would depend on the nature of such income and the tax treaty with their country of origin. He also conceded that the entire move to involve foreigners and their transmitted income was due to rising public debt, slow economic growth and an ageing population.

Data collected by the Pattaya Mail and feedback provided to Facebook groups strongly suggest that each TRD office is interpreting the rules in its own way. In Bangkok, several expats showed detailed financial paperwork and were told nothing (or just 3,000-4,000 baht) to pay. In Chonburi, some assessments have been made without any paperwork required beyond passport and address confirmation. In Surat Thani, one expat said the officer was interested in double taxation, another being sharply advised to the contrary. Rather like the Destination Thailand Visa in a very different context, officer discretion in embassies, rather than agreed rules, is the order of the day.

Continues at

https://www.pattayamail.com/latestnews/news/no-sign-of-a-common-thai-policy-to-tax-expats-on-overseas-remittances-494166

 

[bkkmfj2648]

2 hours ago, reader said:

Some claim that everyone who was present in Thailand for 180 days plus last year needs to file, an observation hotly disputed by others who stress no need if you didn’t transfer “assessable” income.

I am in this camp - I had ZERO "assessable" income in the 2024 tax year.

2 hours ago, reader said:

He does caution that those in doubt should consult a native Thai tax consultant,

And I did consult a Thai tax consultant who agrees with my plan to ONLY top up my Thai bank account in the tax year that I decide to be outside of Thailand for more than 180 days - which will be this 2026 tax year - as I already had 59 days outside of Thailand when I stayed in Cebu, Philippines and I will have an additional 130 days outside of Thailand after Songkran finishes here in Pattaya.

2 hours ago, reader said:

He also conceded that the entire move to involve foreigners and their transmitted income was due to rising public debt, slow economic growth and an ageing population.

And he forgot to state that part of this Thai fiscal deficit was their decision to keep the borders closed for 2.5 years during covid - thus CRUSHING approximately 20% of the Thai GDP.

In my mind, this is VERY unfair to us who were not here during the covid pandemic - as we are being made to be accountable for this irresponsible (to the Thai economy) decision.  Why should we have to pay for this mistake?

I was in Hungary during the covid pandemic and our PM realized after 6 months, that he needed to reopen the borders as soon as possible, or risk to destroy the Hungarian economy and fiscal situation.  Guess what we survived.  Nothing bad happened.

I will repeat again - this current Thai government is doing everything in its power to destroy its economy:

• scare away foreigners that want to retire and/or invest in Thailand by taxing the expats who live here and want to spend most of all of our end-of-life finances and assets in THAILAND --> up until 01-January-2024 Thailand operated under the Territorial Tax Regime - what you earn within the borders of the Kingdom of Thailand are subject to the PIT taxation scheme.  Now this has been changed to now include money that you bring into Thailand to live on or invest with.  Furthermore, at the behest of the OECD, Thailand is threatening to implement a Global Taxation Regime - to tax any tax residents on their worldwide global assets.
• violate the human rights of the 40 Uyghurs that Thailand deported against their will back to China at the end of February 2025 - and now the local Thai citizenry will suffer the related negative consequences from this geopolitical disaster,
• scared away the Chinese tourist population over the ignored (for a very long time) scam centers operating primarily along the Myanmar border and some smaller ones over in the nearby Laos border - which led to safety concerns for many citizens of the world - mainly for some of the Chinese who were for forced as slaves to work in these scam call center operations.

What will it take to get some economic normalcy back into the Thai economy ?