Transcript of the above video: 

Unfortunately yet again we are talking about Thai Tax and notwithstanding the hyperbole and nonsense of the past years, they are kind of rolling back their verbiage on this topic but there is still a bunch of disingenuousness out there, especially among the community of foreign, illegal agents from apparently the Internal Revenue Service, who it seems to be their policy to go interfering in Treaty Allies' tax affairs; I don't understand why that's going on. I'm hoping the new Administration will investigate this because I have serious questions. Are these people part of the so-called 87,000 new agents that IRS is supposedly hiring under Secretary Yellen to come after all of us Americans and suck us all dry? Meanwhile, why are they interfering and intervening illegally in matters pertaining to Thai Tax policy, as I have discussed in other videos. 

Now that being said, there's room for some in my opinion problem, how do I put this? I have issues with local bureaucrats overreaching too much regarding Tax Policy. What are we talking about here? And I'm really sick of the media too. The media has been very disingenuous. It has basically put things out there in such a way that people are making false assumptions regarding their own possible tax liability, the need to remain in Thailand or the need to leave Thailand. Quite honestly the media has been awful in all of it this and they have been complicit in my opinion in a bunch of foreign quite frankly interloping in Thai Policy. That said, quoting directly, again recent article, Thai Examiner, thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Revenue Department boss calls on tax residents in Thailand to file 2024 returns by March 31st deadline. There should be a parentheses after that that says "if they need to" because again, there seems to be sort of a confluence of events - a perfect storm here - where overreaching bureaucrats are trying to imply tax liability that may not exist. Meanwhile the charlatans and frankly fake illegal operators operating in complete violation of the restricted occupations here in Thailand are trying to in my opinion, act as "stamp-pimps" as I have discussed in other videos, trying to get people a Thai Tax ID number when they don't necessarily need it and thereby effectively subject them to tax jurisdiction that isn't warranted. What are we talking about? Quoting further: "Revenue Department urges tax residents in Thailand to file 2024 returns by March 31." What is this one-size-fits-all nonsense? The underlying law of the Thai Tax regime has not changed, and I'll get to it in a moment. Yes, there was an intra-departmental memo regarding remittances from overseas as they pertain to timing moving forward or how they will be assessed and how that pertains to the timing of the remittance. Yes, from January 1, 2024, there were changes with regard to that internally, within the Revenue Department. Now that said, they haven't changed the law; there is not an affirmative duty to go running into the arms of the Tax Authorities here in Thailand. There is only an affirmative duty if certain income thresholds are met, thus triggering a mechanism that requires reporting. Quoting further: "Expats with over 180 days in Thailand must submit returns for income remitted in 2024." Not true. Only if it hits a certain threshold might they be required to file a return. Mere physical presence is not enough to require a return, and I think the people talking about this stuff know this because I think the foreign charlatans are trying to just drum up business that isn't necessary or appropriate based on the facts in a given circumstance. Meanwhile I think tax authorities have no problem with those commenting people into getting a Tax ID number. This is really nefarious stuff and it's going to do Thailand no good long-term in terms of foreign investment or people wanting to retire here and secondly, these charlatans are awful and need to be run out of the country. It's this kind of nonsense that the restricted occupations exists for - to keep foreigners out of this place and basically to keep them out of intervening and interfering in the way Thai Tax policy is executed.

This is good for no one. It's not good for Thailand because it's going to scare off foreign investments, it's going to scare off foreign retirees and meanwhile, you're not going to get any money. Look at the Double Tax Agreements. Even for people that might need to file, they are probably not going to pay any taxes here in Thailand. You are just going to go through the process of processing a bunch of documentation for no return. Who is going to profit from this? The charlatans and illegals who are violating the restricted occupations by coming over here and erroneously telling foreigners they need to get Tax ID under all circumstances. Those are the people who are going to profit. The Kingdom of Thailand isn't going to get much of any money out of this and in fact the cost benefit is going to be completely skewed towards the cost side, as it is going to require all these man hours to process all this paperwork on returns that aren't going to happen. Nobody is going to end up paying much of anything here if you do the actual analysis on this, so the Thais don't gain anything. Meanwhile the retirees and everybody else who these people have whipped up into a fury and are now running to get their Tax ID number, they are not going to pay in anything but they are going to have to pay to process paperwork. How does that benefit them? Quoting further: "Expats with over 180 days in Thailand must submit returns for income remitted in 2024." Again, maybe, maybe not. It depends on the circumstances in the given case. Quoting further: "New tax rules require filing electronically, with possible refunds for early submissions." First of all, it doesn't require filing electronically. In their own article quoting further down, "In effect, only electronic forms will be accepted until April 8, 2025. Paper returns must be received by the end of March." So, for this year yes, paper filing is still allowed, okay? By the way I hate this requirement that they're saying everything has to go digital. Who said? Where's the law that made it so everything has to go digital? Okay you're fundamentally changing the way taxes are dealt with. There should be a law promulgated to do that; that shouldn't be able to be done by some nonsense regulation. That said, quoting further: “The Director-general of the Revenue Department on Thursday called on taxpayers to file their end-of-year returns for 2024." Well yeah, okay, but again, and this needs to be made clear and again, nobody from the Revenue Department that I can see is being disingenuous. But they are saying things and just sort of leaving it without any further analysis and let me get into this, but they are saying, they sort of make a blanket statement, “you should just file”. Well, you may not need to, okay? Quoting further: “This will be the first year that all foreign residents is Thailand are included.” Well no, not all foreign residents in Thailand are included. First of all, do you meet the 180 days threshold? Yes, or no? If not, you're not included, and you may be considered resident in Thailand. In fact, legally speaking, you could be a lawful permanent resident in Thailand without being Tax Resident in Thailand, so let's dispel that nonsense. Meanwhile, even if you go over the 180 days, if you don't remit anything or you didn't gain it, and this is the key, if it's not income you may not owe anything, okay? If it's not income or some kind of accrued gain, you may not owe anything. It might just be your money, okay. So just because you had a bank transfer in Thailand and happened to be over 180 days in the country in 2024, does not in and of itself imply that you have to file a return. This is why these charlatans are so awful. They are giving you one-size-fits-all information that may not pertain to your factual situation, but you may get stuck under Thai Tax jurisdiction anyway. This is why these people are criminal, because they're doing things that are a detriment to the public. That's why the restricted occupations exist here, and I ask the question where is law enforcement? You have no problem going after blue collar criminals but when these white collar criminals come in, oh what, because they're farang, we're all supposed to just back off and give them a wide berth? No! They are in clear violation of our laws here, as they pertain to foreign professionals. 

Quoting further: "Changes to tax regulations in 2023 make all income remitted to Thailand by foreign residents in the country for over 180 days last year declarable." Declarable. That's why I put that in the title, Declarable. It doesn't say you have to declare, it says it's declarable, okay? You have to understand the nuance and the minutia of this kind of language. It's used to trick, again, I read that sentence again. This sentence is designed to obfuscate and trick people and sort of misdirect from the underlying point. Quoting directly: "The income tax payable by each foreigner depends on the nature of such income and the Tax Treaty with their country of origin." - yeah that's true, but go back and this is the point here.  "Changes to tax regulations in 2023," -  okay, first of all there was only one change, an intra-departmental memo that pertained to assessability based on timing of when income comes into the country. That's all that changed; nothing else changed. The law didn't change, the duty to file and sort of the legal analysis surrounding that didn't change. Quoting further: "Changes to tax regulations in 2023 make all income remitted to Thailand by foreign residents in the country for over 180 days last year declarable." Possibly. It makes it possible to declare it to the Tax Authority, but you may not have to, depending on the underlying facts. Even if you were here 180 days. Stop trying to make this legal analysis about cookie cutter analysis. I understand you folks out there in the public, especially you expats, you style yourselves as some sort of legal experts, you need to shut up, because you don't know what you're talking about. It's exactly this kind of one-size-fits-all analysis that detrimentally affects people who may not necessarily have to deal with this tax situation at all, okay? Quoting further: "The income tax payable by each foreigner depends on the nature of such income and the Tax Treaty with their country of origin." Not everything is income either. That's the other thing nobody seems to be understanding in all of this. Just because a Bank remittance comes into Thailand, does not automatically make that income, okay? I love it. They are simplistic when they are trying to rope people into something, but they are hyper-specific if you are trying to get out of it anything. Don't forget this folks. Quoting further: "The question now is how many foreign taxpayers will file returns between now and March 31?" Yeah, because a lot of them don't need to, notwithstanding your nonsense hyperbole in the media. Quoting further: "After that it remains to be seen if follow-up actions will be taken against those who fail to do so." Yeah, okay, what, are you trying to scare everybody? Okay. You may not need to file a tax return. I wouldn't walk around shivering in your boots if you don't okay, especially if you in good faith don't think you need to file, you probably don't. Again, I'm not giving one-size-fits-all advice. If you have any questions about this type of thing you need to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed. That said, quoting further: "A Thai Examiner survey in 2024 showed that 16% of people plan to take professional advice, while a full 58% would not file a return at all." Well depending on their circumstances, that may or may not be warranted; again it depends on the underlying circumstances. That being said, and something that I think is very much worth noting, again - "16% plan to take professionals advice" - make sure it's real professional advice. If it's not a Thai national, they cannot be dispensing tax advice regarding Thailand. It's illegal to do so. 

Also, something to think about for all your folks out there for whatever reason who hate me, for being a duly accredited person doing what I'm doing and want to run off to somebody because you're going to be super sneaky, do you like Attorney-Client privilege? Especially as it pertains to the IRS, because you don't have any with an agent of that particular organization. Now I know that they will come up with "Oh well, we're a special professional”, their name is what it is. They are agents of the IRS, that is what they are. I'm an Attorney; I'm licensed in the US Tax Court. There are certain ethical obligations I have to maintain when communicating with clients, most notably Attorney - Client confidentiality and Attorney-Client privilege. I am really sick and tired of the fakes, I am sick and tired of the frauds and I'm sick and tired of the media being complicit and causing consternation amongst the Expat community over taxes that they are not even really required to deal with frankly depending on their circumstances, for the vast majority of them, in any way.