Transcript of the above video: 

I know I have ALERT on this video and in a sense I want this to be an ALERT, so that people are aware of it if for no other reason than the discussion gets going about how bad of an idea this is on so many levels. That said, I also wanted to get people's attention with this video in order to assuage people to a certain degree because unfortunately, yet again, the ether of the internet is talking about something as if it's a foregone conclusion and going to occur, when in fact it currently appears that that is not the case that something is being proposed here. So let me dig into this and then we'll come back to the analysis.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that's thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Thailand is studying a Negative Income Tax (NIT) scheme to involve all adults in the economy. That's the first thing I like. "Involve all adults in the economy"!  You mean track and trace us all, and basically extract wealth from us especially from the lowest socioeconomic sectors of the economy? Because that's what everybody has been talking about. Meanwhile, this so-called Negative Income Tax which I believe there were those that were making speeches about this previously, that I made videos on where I said call it a Negative Income Tax, call it a UBI, it's all Communist, Socialist nonsense, and it's all just basically a ruse in my opinion to get people under really a totalitarian bureaucracy and candidly something that's just a bunch of hassles. I mean in a lot of cases people aren't even going to be liable for tax. It's just a matter of "oh now to live your life, you have got to fill out this and go on to that website and do this nonsense and that nonsense". All of this is just a bad idea. It's one of the reasons I'm making the video in the hopes that perhaps cooler heads will prevail and we won't actually see this imposed or at the very least - and this is my hope more than anything - people will seriously take a breath in political circles and think about the possible fallout that could come from hastily imposing something that could have a tremendous negative effect on inbound Foreign Direct Investment as well as ongoing investment and ongoing expatriation of people bringing money into Thailand to just live and basically retire here, okay? 

So circling back, I want to be clear. From what I gather as of the time of this video, this is not a foregone conclusion despite the fact that some verbiage out there in the ether of the internet might have people believe that it is. What am I talking about here? Digging in again, Thai Examiner, thaiexaminer.com, quoting directly: "It is assumed" - emphasis on "assumed" -"It is assumed that all foreigners living in Thailand are presently in receipt of income in excess of 120,000 Baht per annum. In the first 3 months of 2025, all foreign residents will be required to file tax returns for the period from 1^st January, 2024 to 31^st December, 2024." Says who? Has the law changed? I haven't seen it. Have we seen any massive regulatory change? I haven't seen it. The only thing I've seen change was the memorandum that occurred last year regarding assessability and timing of inbound remittances. 

Meanwhile, let's go earlier in that same article and I don't know why people choose to use this kind of verbiage with a certain finality to it or a certain air of it being a foregone conclusion but it appears to me that it's not. We have not seen changes with regard to the law with respect to this, at least as of the time of this video. Quoting directly from earlier in that article: "In short, the proposal," and I emphasize this, I'm adding emphasis here, "the proposal may later be submitted to the Cabinet." So it's my understanding that these “proposals” of possible changes to Thai Tax Law including the possibility of foreigners needing to file a return, it has not gone through full due legislative process here, okay? So let me state that again. "In short, the proposal may later be submitted to the Cabinet. The Minister emphasized that the matter was growing increasingly urgent due to the country's chronic demographic problem." That's another one. They constantly throw out this "we're an ageing population, therefore the Government has to come in and be this overarching, overburdening over-nanny stating, over-taxing, over-wealth extracting entity, because there's not enough of you. Doesn't make any sense to me, I don't know why. Meanwhile, Thailand’s supposed birth dearth and the “ageing population” is a product of outside influences that came in and basically said some 25, 30 years ago and prior, "oh we need to worry about too many births"! - Now it's not enough births. Again it's just this constant manipulation. It stinks of the World Economic Forum, Communism, all sorts of socialized nonsense that has destroyed Western economies; it has destroyed the political systems of the West; it has frankly destroyed pretty much everything we came to love about the West. And now we're hearing this nonsense from these politicians who by the way, I find it really interesting that for over a decade and you can say what you will about the Government of Thailand during that roughly dozen year period of time from roughly 2012 to now, we never heard about this stuff. None of this. It all looks to me like outside influence, quite frankly foreign pressure towards something that's clearly not in the best interest of the rank and file Thais. I think this could have a tremendous detrimental impact on Foreign Direct Investment here in Thailand; just generally speaking it's not a good idea. That said, it also doesn't help that out there in the press this is talked about as if this is just a given which from what I'm understanding it is not. 

So again as usual we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as this situation evolves.