Transcript of the above video: 

At the title of this video suggests, we are talking about Thai Tax yet again, not the topic I particularly want to be talking about all the time but here we are. As I have discussed in other videos, there's a lot of consternation in the expat community over tax mostly because there's a lot of nonsense being spewed by frankly idiots and criminals on the internet, on issues pertaining to Thai Tax. 

That being said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Finance Minister silent on overseas remittances to Thailand. Quoting directly: "The Pheu Thai Government in August 2023 did ask TRD (that is Thai Revenue Department) to examine ways to widen the country's tax base but has since left all announcements on the matter to the Tax Authority." Well first of all, they would need to change a lot of laws to do that. Now they keep saying they can sort of do this by some sort of unilateral Fiat, but that's not really how it works, okay? The tax system is based on promulgated law here and the regulations stem therefrom. Some regulations can be changed. As we discussed, there was an intra-Revenue Department memo that went out in 2023 where they said, "look for assessability purposes, the timing of remittances is no longer going to matter." That is what came down the pike in January '20 or as of January 1, 2024. Effectively we're still living under the old rules in many ways, but as it stands yeah, that is going to be different moving forward in terms of assessability, not liability, okay? They may be able to look at something, it doesn't mean you're liable for anything. And meanwhile, the underlying laws have not changed notwithstanding the seeming campaign by the media to sort of have it out there that this is a foregone conclusion; Thailand's joining OECD; all of this is just happening; there's a Global Minimum Tax, that's not actually the case. We haven't actually seen the tax laws change. We're still sitting under the same system. Quoting further: "In his forum speech, Minister Pichai talked about the need to reduce both corporate income tax to boost investment and personal income taxes to encourage more skilled workers." How about you just get rid of both? You really want to stimulate something, just get rid of both. That's never going to happen, I get it, but whatever. Quoting further: "But he advocated the VAT rate should increase in line with global practices." How about you stick to Thai practices? I'm sick of hearing about global practices. I'm also sick of Janet Yellen's little pet project of "Global Minimum Tax" which she rolled out some years back and then it has kind of quietly been festering under the surface. And now at least out here in Southeast Asia, it has come to the foreground after Banks started sending out CRS documentation scaring the begeezus out of all the foreigners here in Thailand and at the same time, nothing's fundamentally changed. Thailand has not joined the OECD; it is not a foregone conclusion that they are going to do so, so I don't understand what's going on. 

Meanwhile there are major political changes happening in the United States namely the Administration has changed over. We have seen a massive mandate in terms of basically policy, policy shift in the United States in terms of manifested in the political sphere by the fact that, setting aside Trump and everything associated with that, it's pretty clear to me when the Congress and the Senate shifts another way - especially in the US Senate where it has been a pretty profound shift based on current sort of demography, it's clear to me that this reasoning and this talk of this being a foregone conclusion is not based on a lot of fact, it is based on a lot of conjecture, and it looks to me like a lot of hopes by a bunch of charlatans trying to go out there and suck up money off the general population, and meanwhile by a bunch of bureaucrats who want to engage in some sort of Global Minimum Tax whereby they treat us all like global serfs where we have to pay taxes just by dint of being born. Nobody signed on to this, I think it's completely illegitimate; I don't think Thailand should have anything to do with any of this. 

I think Thailand should concentrate on her own practices, do things the way she has always done because that has always worked; the proof is in the pudding. Thailand knows how to handle her own domestic matters. Why are we engaging in all of this globalist nonsense with these supranational organizations? I mean this runs counter to basically Thailand's modus operandi for some I don't know, 100 years at least. At the end of the day, Thailand should worry about doing things their best or in the self-interest of Thailand, the national interest of Thailand, and stop worrying about what the global practices are of others.